Doubting Didymus

Sure, but the argument along these lines has already been debunked and rejected on many different grounds in this very thread.

You have attempted to paint homosexuality as an adaptation, but it just makes no evolutionary sense at all to limit your breeding prospects in any way, for any reason. How can a trait that causes people to breed less in times of stress become more frequent than the opposite trait?

AmericanHeretic

I disagree, it does make sense to limit population growth, at times. When a species populates to the point that the entire survival matrix (food supply, relationship to predators, resistance to disease, all the variables) is stressed by their numbers and intra-species competition, it then makes perfect evolutionary sense to restrain population growth. Selection mechanisms are obviously extra-species, but my point is that selection mechanisms also operate within species.
I agree that many claims similar to mine have been rejected here, I disagree though, that they were refuted. If they were refuted, I would not have posted my theory. I rather like a good refutation, even against my own forwarded ideas.
I explained how the population growth rate adjustment can cause people to breed less in times of longstanding stress, but I did not claim this goes on to the extent that it becomes more frequent than the opposite (normal sexuality and breeding rate). That situation would yield a human society that would be 51% gay or higher, and that is not the case.

Secular Pinoy

This sounds like group-selectionism. Organisms do not do things for the benefit of their species. They only care for their survival, and only so long as it maximizes their individual reproductive success. They have no long term goals, nor are they aware of them.

MyKell

Oh really??? There is a whole field of Evolutionary Psychology that you are unaware of!! What about altruism? How do you explain that? Ok, well the aforementioned claim is obviously a primitive understanding of the whole concept of Natural Selection. Or rather a very limited one, that creationists sometimes use to attack neo-Darwinism.

I find AmericanHeretic's ideas very interesting and testable as well. Let's test them!!

Secular Pinoy

Huh? I am aware of EvoPsych. And I'm aware of their explanations for altruism. What's that got to do with my post above? Read The Selfish Gene, I think you're misunderstanding my point.

pz

Yes, it does. But the only way a heritable mechanism to limit population growth will attain common currency is if that mechanism limits the other guy's growth relative to my growth. Your model has individuals voluntarily sacrificing their reproductive capacity to benefit (in some vague way) the population at large. We should see extinction of such behavior, not fixation.

Even genetic models of altruism have implicit in them some benefit to the specific lineage carrying the trait.

MyKell

Why is that? It is the group that we usually "observe" not scattered individuals. A grand theory of Natural Selection is to explain what we observe. Anyway, altruism in some animals like squirrels goes as far as one individual screaming and thus drawing a predator towards it when the group is attacked. Following your same argument, We should see extinction of such behavior, not fixation.

Secular Pinoy

You really need to read The Selfish Gene. No we would not expect that trait to die down. Altruistic behavior does not evolve itself out of existence, so long as there is, as pz pointed out, benefit to the specific lineage carrying the trait.

MyKell

Dude, I have read the Selfish Gene and what you are specifically claiming is your own interpretation of Dawkins. In any case, the concept of Natural Selection has been extended in later books, like the blindwatchmaker, by Dawkins himself. You probably need to read the Moral Animal by Robert Wright and later books written by Dawkins.
Also, you should get yourself aquainted with Freud. Homosexuality is part of sexual development which everyone goes through. Although this idea might be a bit extreme, but as people have mentioned before on this specific thread, homosexual behavior itself is a broad spectrum. Extreme altruistic behavior exhibited by the example of the squirrel I gave is almost certainly not found in other members of the group, otherwise, a predator would find a meal of altruistic squirrels everytime it attacks a group. Individuals on that side of the spectrum are essential for the survival of the others on the opposite side of the spectrum. There is never an on/off switch to genetics leading to behavior

pz

Yes, we should. The argument for why we don't is that the sacrifice of one promotes the well-being of related individuals, individuals who would be carrying similar genes, in the group. It's a specific prediction of theories of altruistic behavior that the magnitude or frequency of the behavior should be positively correlated with the degree of relatedness to the group.