Doug PollardAll in the genes
June 19th 2008 05:19
It's all in the genes
Genetics is not the simple science it first appears. There has been a great deal of argument about whether homosexuality is a ‘chosen lifestyle’, which can therefore safely be disapproved of by the censorious and moralistic, or an innate, inborn characteristic, in which case the individual has no choice in the matter and is therefore blameless.
Evidence has been piling up for some time now in favour of the genetic argument, but not in a simple straightforward manner. As our understanding of genetics has improved, we have come to understand that many genes may be involved in a single characteristic, and that the environment also plays a part.
Newspapers are apt to say, for example, that scientists have discovered ‘the gene for breast cancer’, when what they have in fact discovered is that certain women with a particular gene are at higher risk of breast cancer. That does not mean that they will get breast cancer, unless certain other as yet unknown conditions are also met.
And we are all familiar with lifelong smokers who die at a ripe old age with no sign of cancer: they do not have the gene, shared by most of us, that makes them susceptible to the disease.
Certain simple-minded people who have failed to grasp these subtleties have protested that homosexuality can’t be genetic, because since homosexual sex is non-reproductive, it would have died out.
This ignores the reality that many homosexuals are, at least on occasion, capable of functioning heterosexually. It also ignores the fact that some people are genuinely bisexual.
But it also ignores the subtlety of genetics. Genes do not operate in isolation. Change one gene and you subtly change the whole organism. And sometimes when nature selects for a change which is directly beneficial in an evolutionary sense, that change has other unintended consequences.
Sickle-cell anemia is a serious, sometimes fatal blood disease, caused by a genetic mutation. But in certain populations, such as in West Africa, it doesn’t die out. That’s because people with the sickle cell mutation survive malaria more often. The same mutation is both good – fights malaria – and bad – gives you anemia.
The latest research indicates that homosexuality is another mixed blessing. Women who give birth to homosexual sons tend, on average, to be more fertile and to have more children, than women who do not. It seems that the gene which produces highly fertile women also produces a tendency to give birth to gay sons.
It has already been noted elsewhere that the more older brothers a boy has, the more likely he is to be gay.
So homosexuality looks like natures way of balancing out the overall fertility of a population: the more fertile the women, the more likely they are to produce socially-infertile sons. And the more sons, the more likely that one of them will be gay. Which explains why three out of my four husbands were educated by the Christian Brothers.
God does indeed move in mysterious ways!!
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Comment by Mountain Fog
Infognito
You should read the rantings of a fellow Orbler by the name of Ahmed, he has some 'interesting views' on this area...
Try his post, "Is homosexuality natural?", (PolyKicks - October 2007) it reeks of homophobia...
cheers
and is that you in the photo...lucky devil...sigh..
fog
Comment by Doug Pollard
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Comment by Cibbuano
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That is, that because we are so good at reproducing, our population will naturally have some percentage of homosexual members.