Moontanman Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 Is it lowering the tone of the discussion to mention a turkey baster at this stage? Lack of physical attraction does not prevent conception. I agree and the length of time spent not having sex is significant in how you react sexually to someone. Since both males and females can have sex forced on them the idea that a homosexual will not be aroused by the touch of the opposite flies in the face of human sexuality as much as saying a hetero sexual cannot be aroused by the touch of the same sex. Prisons would seem to deny this objection as much as anything else... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Cuthber Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 I understand from someone who did time that the idea that there's a lot of gay sex in prisons is a myth. Sure, those who are so inclined pair up. The rest form deep meaningful relationships with their right hand (so to speak). It doesn't really matter. You need a male and a female to have kids- but it doesn't matter if they are not in love. It doesn't matter if they are not in the same room. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chadn737 Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 (edited) Is it lowering the tone of the discussion to mention a turkey baster at this stage? Lack of physical attraction does not prevent conception. It does if you never have sex with a member of the opposite sex. A 40 year old virgin CAN reproduce, but his odds of doing so sure aren't helped by him remaining a virgin. Its obvious that a homosexual CAN reproduce. However, if being homosexual makes it less likely for you to have sex with a member of the opposite sex, then you are less likely to conceive. Its pretty simple and I am not sure what the controversy over this point is. Sure, we can now avoid sex altogether, but that is really irrelevant in the context of its evolutionary history and current population genetic structure. Edited February 4, 2014 by chadn737 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Cuthber Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 It does if you never have sex with a member of the opposite sex. A 40 year old virgin CAN reproduce, but his odds of doing so sure aren't helped by him remaining a virgin. Its obvious that a homosexual CAN reproduce. However, if being homosexual makes it less likely for you to have sex with a member of the opposite sex, then you are less likely to conceive. Its pretty simple and I am not sure what the controversy over this point is. Sure, we can now avoid sex altogether, but that is really irrelevant in the context of its evolutionary history and current population genetic structure. Did you understand what the turkey baster gets used for? As I said, Lack of physical attraction does not prevent conception. You need a male and a female to have kids- but it doesn't matter if they are not in love. It doesn't matter if they are not in the same room. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chadn737 Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 (edited) Did you understand what the turkey baster gets used for? As I said, Lack of physical attraction does not prevent conception. You need a male and a female to have kids- but it doesn't matter if they are not in love. It doesn't matter if they are not in the same room. Did I say "lack of physical attraction prevents conception"? The answer to that would be no. I am not talking about what CAN happen. I am talking about practical reality. Reality is that sex is the primary means of reproduction. Last I checked, turkey basters didn't exist for most of human history. Even in today's magical world of artificial insemination, the majority of the world still makes children by sex. The fact that there are alternatives is really irrelevant in a biological context because thats not how we typically reproduce and its certainly not how we reproduced a thousand or more years ago. So is homosexual attraction an inhibition to that? Would it have been inhibitory throughout human history. The fact that heterosexual men have more children than homosexual men, as was shown in the Samoan study I posted earlier, says yes. Even if we assume that in many cultures and times homosexuals still married had kids by sex (which they did), the question still remains whether or not they would have had as many offspring if their attractions inhibited in any way the regularity of sex with the opposite sex. That has evolutionary and genetic implications for homosexuality as a trait. Edited February 5, 2014 by chadn737 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Cuthber Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 "Did I say "lack of physical attraction prevents conception"? The answer to that would be no." Actually, I think you will find that you did. What you said in response to "Lack of physical attraction does not prevent conception." was "It does if you never have sex with a member of the opposite sex" which is incorrect. The error is particularly clear when it's following on from "Is it lowering the tone of the discussion to mention a turkey baster at this stage?" How most people beget the next generation is completely beside the point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chadn737 Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 "Did I say "lack of physical attraction prevents conception"? The answer to that would be no." Actually, I think you will find that you did. What you said in response to "Lack of physical attraction does not prevent conception." was "It does if you never have sex with a member of the opposite sex" which is incorrect. The error is particularly clear when it's following on from "Is it lowering the tone of the discussion to mention a turkey baster at this stage?" How most people beget the next generation is completely beside the point. This is not the first time you have quote mined me. If you read the full context of my post, its clear that this is not what I said: "It does if you never have sex with a member of the opposite sex. A 40 year old virgin CAN reproduce, but his odds of doing so sure aren't helped by him remaining a virgin. Its obvious that a homosexual CAN reproduce. However, if being homosexual makes it less likely for you to have sex with a member of the opposite sex, then you are less likely to conceive. Its pretty simple and I am not sure what the controversy over this point is. Sure, we can now avoid sex altogether, but that is really irrelevant in the context of its evolutionary history and current population genetic structure." So...right there it is in that post....I say that it is possible, but that it makes it less likely. That last sentence..."Sure, we can now avoid sex altogether"...that means that we can avoid sex using artificial methods. That is the proper context...so once again, you have taken me out of context and argued against a strawman. That's quote mining my friend. And no, how many people are born each generation is the point. Its evolution, its genetics. The effective population size and the rate of reproduction...these factors are part of what drive how we evolve and human demographic shifts. To understand homosexuality in the scientific context, we really need to understand it from these perspectives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
overtone Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 1) Strawman. I never claimed that these studies were evidence for heterozygote advantage You posted them in response to my post dealing specifically with kin selection vs heterozygous advantage. That was the comparison I was posting about, explicitly. If your post had no relevance to that matter, why did you involve my posting? If you agree with me that maternal fecundity is not evidence of heterozygous advantage, then we are in agreement. The next matter would be why you think maternal fecundity is somehow in opposition to kin selection - that the one would exclude or oppose the other. In some of the studies, they only looked at number of sexual partners, finding that siblings of homosexuals often had greater number of sexual partners. Its a huge leap to suggest that such behavior is based entirely on an expectation of greater support Which would be why nobody has suggested that. Once again, agreement. They do not have a reduction in neediness (ruling out your reduced competition hypothesis), nor do they differ in general generosity towards family members.- - As I pointed out above in the Samoan study, homosexuals have no reduction in "neediness" (i.e. the amount of resources used from family members) than heterosexual members, which clearly contradicts the argument that it has anything to do with resource competition. No, it doesn't. The resource competition between the children is the important one, and as you note homosexual kin provide fewer competiting children - making the greater maternal fecundity less of a risk - while as I note being avaialble as a reserve pool of genetics and resource provision should disaster strike. Because greater maternal fecundity cannot be assumed to be an evolutionary advantage to the maternal genetics - as with birds or anything else, too many children exposes them all to margin risk, lowering the overall odds of genetic survival and mutliplication. Providing a reserve, flywheel reproductive capacity that does not produce directly competitive progeny is one role of kin - a possible kin selection advantage for homoxexuality. It is interesting then that we find evidence for fecundity and fraternal birth order across societies, but evidence of kin selection has been limited to only one culture. This would suggest that it is the latter two, not kin selection, that is the better explanation. Evidence of kin selection - even in the very limited and misleading sense of resource distribution during normal circumstances, which you for some reason seem to regard as fundamental or necessary - was found in every tribal culture researched (the only one). The only type of society examined that showed no evidence of kin selection via resource support (one of several possible modes of kin selection, but the only one researched) was modern industrial agricultural - a couple of examples of that one (England, US, Japan). That would also be the most problematical and dubious type of society to examine for insight into the evolutionary basis of human sexual response - it's less than a couple of thousand years old. Kin behavior, and especially resource distribution by kinship, in modern, non-tribal societies is not a reliable proxy for kin behavior in evolutionarily relevant societies - the dramatic changes in kin relationship and wealth distribution that modernization ushers in are famous. 4) I am not assuming that the modern estrangement of gay men to be an evolutionary norm. However, I think it equally fallacious to extrapolate from the singular example of Samoa to the evolutionary history of humanity. You posted the thing, I pointed out that it argues for my point - that kin selection remains a likely factor. It is the only culture presented that has strong tribal structure, for example - usually regarded as a feature of the evolutionarily relevant circumstances. So we have 3 studies against and one study for. I count one type of society not visibly resource - provisioning during normal circumstances according to a questionaire, and one type visibly resource provisioning even without obvious need. Which type provides better evidence for human behavior in evolutionarily relevant circumstances? What about the other kin selection modes? The patterns of resource provision over lifetimes and including high stress circumstances? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Cuthber Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 (edited) I said "Lack of physical attraction does not prevent conception." And, as A direct response you quoted me and replied "It does if you never have sex with a member of the opposite sex. " which plainly isn't true. That's not quote mining, it's pointing out an error. Edited February 6, 2014 by John Cuthber Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chadn737 Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 (edited) I said "Lack of physical attraction does not prevent conception." And, as A direct response you quoted me and replied "It does if you never have sex with a member of the opposite sex. " which plainly isn't true. That's not quote mining, it's pointing out an error. It's quote mining when you ignore the rest of the post which qualifies that statement. Its not my fault you don't read what I actually say: "It does if you never have sex with a member of the opposite sex. A 40 year old virgin CAN reproduce, but his odds of doing so sure aren't helped by him remaining a virgin. Its obvious that a homosexual CAN reproduce. However, if being homosexual makes it less likely for you to have sex with a member of the opposite sex, then you are less likely to conceive. Its pretty simple and I am not sure what the controversy over this point is. Sure, we can now avoid sex altogether, but that is really irrelevant in the context of its evolutionary history and current population genetic structure." Edited February 6, 2014 by chadn737 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Cuthber Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 Here's the rest of what you said ". A 40 year old virgin CAN reproduce, but his odds of doing so sure aren't helped by him remaining a virgin. Its obvious that a homosexual CAN reproduce. However, if being homosexual makes it less likely for you to have sex with a member of the opposite sex, then you are less likely to conceive. Its pretty simple and I am not sure what the controversy over this point is. Sure, we can now avoid sex altogether, but that is really irrelevant in the context of its evolutionary history and current population genetic structure. " Please point out the bit which stops this bit ""It does if you never have sex with a member of the opposite sex. "" being wrong as a reply to " "Lack of physical attraction does not prevent conception."" Or, if you prefer, please show how it makes this statement of mine "Lack of physical attraction does not prevent conception."" false. Seriously, it's perfectly possible for people to have kids without sex, and that's all I said. If you google "turkey baster" the top two hits are not about basting turkeys. Like I said, it's not quote mining, it's error correction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chadn737 Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 Please point out the bit which stops this bit ""It does if you never have sex with a member of the opposite sex. "" being wrong as a reply to " "Lack of physical attraction does not prevent conception."" As explained here: "I am not talking about what CAN happen. I am talking about practical reality. Reality is that sex is the primary means of reproduction. Last I checked, turkey basters didn't exist for most of human history. Even in today's magical world of artificial insemination, the majority of the world still makes children by sex. The fact that there are alternatives is really irrelevant in a biological context because thats not how we typically reproduce and its certainly not how we reproduced a thousand or more years ago. So is homosexual attraction an inhibition to that? Would it have been inhibitory throughout human history. The fact that heterosexual men have more children than homosexual men, as was shown in the Samoan study I posted earlier, says yes. Even if we assume that in many cultures and times homosexuals still married had kids by sex (which they did), the question still remains whether or not they would have had as many offspring if their attractions inhibited in any way the regularity of sex with the opposite sex. That has evolutionary and genetic implications for homosexuality as a trait. " And as I explained here: "So...right there it is in that post....I say that it is possible, but that it makes it less likely. That last sentence..."Sure, we can now avoid sex altogether"...that means that we can avoid sex using artificial methods. That is the proper context...so once again, you have taken me out of context and argued against a strawman. That's quote mining my friend. And no, how many people are born each generation is the point. Its evolution, its genetics. The effective population size and the rate of reproduction...these factors are part of what drive how we evolve and human demographic shifts. To understand homosexuality in the scientific context, we really need to understand it from these perspectives." I suppose I really do have to spell things out explicitly. The ability to procreate without having sex is a recent invention in human history. Turkey basters full of sperm were not being used during the period of human history most relevant to our evolution and current genetic structure. I'm here to discuss the Biology of homosexuality, which requires us to think in terms of its evolution and genetics. That you can impregnate a woman today without ever seeing her is irrelevant to the evolution of this trait, because it was not a factor for nearly all of human history. It is quote mining my friend, you can't correct errors that don't exist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
For Prose Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 I believe this to be troll started thread and feel that keeping it open will only diminish this community. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iNow Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 I believe this to be troll started thread and feel that keeping it open will only diminish this community.One of the beauties of this community, IMO, is that we take the time to provide reasonable, rational, and accurate answers even to trollish questions designed to incite and cause people to lose their composure. That doesn't diminish this community. It defines it. With that said... I tend to agree that a valid answer was provided on the very first page, and several times it was repeated on the four that have followed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Cuthber Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 ""I am not talking about what CAN happen. " Actually, you are. The presence of the word "if" in this sentence demonstrates that "It does if you never have sex with a member of the opposite sex. " And, as I have pointed out , it doesn't.; Ask Louise Brown. iNow has raised a very good point, the question has been answered anyway. The answer is no (for a number of reasons) Is this thread going anywhere? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hypervalent_iodine Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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