CuriousChris

Very interesting indeed.

The epi-markers are normally kept, insted of being swept away, a certain fairly large percentage of the time. The frequency of homosexual orientation is apparently not only fairly high, but fairly high across cultures and continents and geographic varieties and evolutionary lineages of the entire species.

 

The species appears to be designed to produce a certain percentage of homosexuals, for some reason. The safest presumption is that this is a feature, not a bug. A property, not a flaw. The idea that this arrangement is "faulty" needs a very strong argument.

'Designed'? I assume you really mean evolved?

Well it's very interesting that the research I highlighted has caused some food for thought. Would I be right in thinking that the research is generally percieved as worthless?

The problem there is the assumption revealed by the invocation of poorly supported "intuition" and the completely unjustified adjective "faulty".

 

The apparent discovery that sexual orientation is epigenetically influenced is interesting. The assessment that this influence is "faulty" in its normal, common, ubiquitous, and evolutionarily established workings is without support, and runs contrary to some obvious circumstantial evidence.

Why is the word 'faulty' a problem? The epi-markers are normally swept away are they not? And homosexuality occures when they are not correctly swept away?

I don't think that the article does say the influence is "faulty" in its normal workings. What obvious circumstantial evidence?

I've read your post a few times and I'm not 100% sure I'm getting your point.

I've only made 4 posts still trying to find the ropes

This appears to be the originating work.

Mars colonization is a great example, actually. There's almost no breeding with the populations on Earth (it's far too expensive for round-trip travel). That alone would eventually lead to speciation. Then there's the dramatic differences in the environment. Yeah, when humanity spreads among the stars, it will be humanities among the stars.

Thanks for your response but that's not the point I was getting at. My comment was intended to illicite a response from King.

populations evolve not individuals...

Correct. But my question was aimed at King as his posts appear to indicate that he thinks individuals evolve, not polpulations. I wanted to clarify this before continuing. Thanks for the reply.

The artical linked to above makes very interesting reading. The existance of homosexual behaviour is counter-intuitive. It should die out as a trait because it is unlikly to foster successful reproduction; a perfect selection pressure for natural selection to work on. The article posites that homosexual behaviour is caused by a faulty transmission of epigenetic markers from a father to daughter or mother to son.

Here is the key paragraph from the article.

The study solves the evolutionary riddle of homosexuality, finding that "sexually antagonistic" epi-marks, which normally protect parents from natural variation in sex hormone levels during fetal development, sometimes carryover across generations and cause homosexuality in opposite-sex offspring. The mathematical modeling demonstrates that genes coding for these epi-marks can easily spread in the population because they always increase the fitness of the parent but only rarely escape erasure and reduce fitness in offspring.

Interesting?

You don't think living on another planet would have anything to do with our biological evolution???

 

EVERYTHING in a given environment, including the people in it drive one's evolution.

Just a thought. But what entity actually evolves? An individual or a gene pool?

Hello all.

I'm Chris.

Born in England in 1959

I have been facinated by science from an early age in particular Biology.

I grew up in Farnborough in Kent which is a few miles from Downe where Charles Darwin lived while writing OoS.

I admin another forum, but it's a pain, so I've joined here to relax.

So that's the basics.

Regards

Chris