tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8180769075610486242.post8661841621527786148..comments2024-01-02T09:45:52.570-05:00Comments on Lost in Transcription Has Moved!!: Re: Homophobia and Evolutionary PsychologyAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04284995441818864226noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8180769075610486242.post-81309191670316592802011-03-17T13:02:52.696-04:002011-03-17T13:02:52.696-04:00Good post.
Reading the history of this field is a...Good post.<br /><br />Reading the history of this field is a lot like reading about peacocks strutting their feathers. But sadder as this is clearly an attempt to fend of the inevitable, the core fears of men: andropause and death. <br /><br />Oh, am I just making this up? I thought that was the whole point.Teresa Matadornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8180769075610486242.post-26324199444472959992011-03-14T17:15:01.125-04:002011-03-14T17:15:01.125-04:00Lets assume that the supposition that early exposu...Lets assume that the supposition that early exposure to homosexuals does not influence the sexual preferences of an individual is correct. But it certainly makes them more tolerant of homosexuals and hence they are more likely not to condone the homosexual behavior of their own kids in turn. So parents who do not condone homosexuality would not have less grandchildren but they certainly would have less great grand children ( at least in a society where parental pressure can force homosexuals to behave straight and have kids )<br /><br />I am just saying this so as to contribute to the discussion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8180769075610486242.post-28989532515325053282011-03-12T13:18:26.612-05:002011-03-12T13:18:26.612-05:00What is normal? Humans demonstrably are highly pol...What is normal? Humans demonstrably are highly polymorphic for sexual identities. Some of this is culturally driven, some isn't. There are extremely monogamous people like myself, people who are serially monogamous, people who have affairs either as part of a functioning relationship (see Dan Savage) or to the detriment of a functioning relationship (ibid), people who are truly polyamorous, and especially men in power, people who are polygamous. And that's just the heterosexuals. We can also talk about the whole spectrum of bisexuals, and about how the whole spectrum of lesbian and gay relationships. Then we can move onto the kinksters and the asexuals. And the intersexuals. <br /><br />There's a real danger for evolutionary psychology, and that danger is defining normal. Human sexuality is a lot more like a poker game, where you've got to play the hand you're dealt, and your success depends on the game you're in. Some hands are winners in most places (heterosexual monogamy), some only win in certain games (homosexual men in ancient Greece, or monastic asexuals in the Tibet).<br /><br />I'd suggest that defining the evolutionary costs of homosexuality isn't the problem. The problem is that the definition of normal is suspect, and that the costs depend on so strongly on each situation that it's just as easy to talk about genes for monastic asexuality as it is to talk about homosexuality. After all, whatever their sexual orientation, gays and lesbians still can and do have children.heteromeleshttp://heteromeles.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8180769075610486242.post-8873066277453717552011-03-12T09:36:52.486-05:002011-03-12T09:36:52.486-05:00OK, having looked at the Bering post, but not havi...OK, having looked at the Bering post, but not having tracked down the original paper, it does not seem that anyone did the obvious control experiment, of asking the same polling questions about people who engage in a different stigmatized practice. (Ideally this would be something which evoked comparable levels of moralized disgust in the survey population, so, e.g., not embezzlers on the one hand or cannibals on the other. Perhaps heroin addicts, or heterosexual prostitutes, or people who eat dogs.) Absent such controls, I decline to say that this is even good psychology.<br /><br />Indeed, I am pretty sure that if the polling were done in rural Afghanistan, or for that matter the remoter parts of the Mormon country in Utah and Arizona, plenty of parents would prefer that their children be exposed to drinkers when they were twenty than when they were eight. Perhaps in time there will be psychologists at Brigham Young, and even (inshallah) Kabul University who will use such results to argue that an aversion to alcohol is an evolved human adaptation.<br /><br />Now for the part of the comment I will really regret having my name attached to, which is to continue the theme of "how many scenarios can we come up with for maximizing the number of grand-kids?". Because of the long duration of pregnancy, suppression of fertility while nursing, etc., the rate-limiting step for the number of grand-kids a daughter will produce is not how often she has heterosexual intercourse, at least not above some fairly low rate. So it's hard to see a fitness advantage in daughters being 100% heterosexual, over "bisexual, has heterosexual intercourse at least so often, perhaps in a 'close your eyes and think of the inclusive fitness' way". If homosexual intercourse between women can help with intra-species competition, resource sharing, etc., parents may in fact maximize the number of grandchildren by encouraging bisexuality among their daughters.<br /><br />Turning now to the sons, under monogamy (or at least "oligogamy"), it follows that frequency of heterosexual intercourse isn't the rate-limiting step for them either. Pure heterosexuality in sons would only be fitness-maximizing if they had the opportunity for sex with many women, but paternal investment of time and resources in children did not increase their chances of maturing into functional, reproducing adults. Since that last clause really does not describe <i>Homo</i> spp. at all, I conclude, by parallel reasoning to the female case, that human parents would have a non-extreme optimal level of bisexuality in their sons as well.<br /><br />(Of course this is all, as you say, just making stuff up with no more controls than what sounds plausible, and would remain so even if I set up a nice constrained optimization problem and stepped through the KKT conditions and everything.)Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17247894364128814630noreply@blogger.com