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I agree a bit. But I *think* it would have evolved as a social thing, like those monkeys who eat nits off each other.
I'm very concious people might be annoyed at me in this thread now
No. Why does something have to have a "primary" purpose?
You're the one who stated that evolution "designed" things. You tell me.
Nothing lives "in complete efficiency / effectiveness in it's environment.". Its a fallacy to think so. Evolution doesn't find perfect solutions, just things that are good enough to survive. There is no grand plan guiding it. In fact, ascribing an evolutionary purpose to everything is wrong - some things may have no purpose.
I don't understand this bit.
You're making the mistake that every trait has to have a purpose or an evolutionary advantage - it doesn't. It just has to not be disadvantegous enough to die out.
I don't understand this bit.
Every gay person I know has had abuse at some point for their sexuality.
Your friend sounds a bit weird tbh.
However, it's always difficult when someone who isn't persecuted for something thinks the persecution doesn't exsist, or is no longer as bad as it was. People do still get the shit kicked out of them for being gay, even killed as in the case of David Morley, and young men like Anthony Walker still get bludgeoned to death with an axe just for being black.
Theories are just guesses on what we can see and work out, what if everything we theoretically prove was put to us as a test to see what we'd come up with? No one can prove if everything's just a guessing game or not.
Anything anyone says is all based on evidence they see, who/what put that evidence there from the very beginning and what was there before the beginning? And I'm not even religous!
It doesn't have to, but I just think when life evolved that sex came about because species that shared genes rather than copied them were more effective at surviving. Hence procreation allowed more complex forms of life.
No point discussion over this point.
The way I understand evolution is that it is an iteritive process. 'Trial and improvement' if you will. There will never be a 'perfect' solution. But by and large, the genepool tends towards a more efficient 'build'. Some things may have no purpose, but in this case they won't usually propogate through the gene pool, will fade out as being redundant / unneccessary traits.
Things do just need to be good enough to survive, but out of two creatures, one can just survive, and one can do it very effectively, give them 100 million years and with all the random things that can happen to disrupt the environment, it will be the creature that is more able to survive that will win out.
That's just me waffling on trying to explain my 'trial and improvement' idea.
This is true in the short term, in the long term though, only the fittest survive. Which is why in the long term the trait of homosexuality will mean that creature is at a disadvantage to the creature with the trait of heterosexuality.
I was trying to say that my evolutionary argument doesn't affect whether a gay person is a twat or a lovely person, in a nutshell. That they're not some 'abnormality'. I was saying that homosexuality as a genetic trait will mean that it will continually die out, that there is no need for it in the long term.
Every gay person I know has never had abuse for their sexuality. However, I agree it still does occur - which is much more the issue than arguing over evolution. I've suffered abuse for my race, I'm white middle class, but it only happened the once and I can get on with my life perfectly. I'd imagine most places a gay person went (within reason) that they wouldn't experience people sneering or trying to lynch them. But more on this below...
To be honest, we're never going to be alive long enough to see anything evolve, so in a sense it's pointless arguing over that. I simply wish to disagree with people when they say that the 'gay gene' is just the same as the blue eyed gene, completed inconsequential, just another variation. Because the gay gene, following the 'trial and improvement' process, will always lead to the species dying out. So in a strictly biological sense, it isn't 'harmless'.
Having said that, I'm fairly certain I've got genes that are going to make me predisposed to cancer, whereas according to my theory of trial and improvement this damages the survivability of the creature (me, and all my offspring) and hence we will eventually die out / genes be replaced by healthier ones in the genepool. This however is a bit of a funny one, because cancer doesn't set in till old age and so I would have ample time to reproduce and pass on my 'imperfect' genes.
I've considered this before, and I think I disagree in a way that there is no perfect being. The way we evolve, is to try, to survive or fail. The survivors are the best, and then they try, and survive or fail. However, given a very strict set of circumstances of environment etc., I believe that given a hell of a lot of information (almost infinite) you could design a 'perfect' creature. In a sense it's like Isaac Newton, who believed if you knew every variable, you could predict the future. Although this is practically impossible, there is no such thing as truly random, everything is cause and event. If this is homosexuality, then the consequence is the species will die out.
This is what concerns me mainly. Maybe I'm not being fair, because I'm not gay. But then in all fairness, how do you measure the level of bigotry in society? The level of discrimination? I acknowledge it exists, but I think the media plays it up to an extent. In the pass 10 years there are very few racist or homophibic events I've witnessed. Maybe it's because I'm white and straight? But my best friend when I was young was Indian/African (mum from India dad from Kenya) and hanging out with him... I can't recall any times. The only time I can remember is the one time where some boys were shouting racial abuse at me, although I wasn't with him then.
So, I don't think it's as bad as it was, in the 50s or the 60s. Maybe I'm wrong, but from the people I see around me - my age, my generation - attitudes have changed. Maybe?
The worst thing is what was there before the universe? It must have come from somewhere... But then conversely, if it is constant, what if there was nothing, and everything was always just nothing? What is nothing?
Ugh, gets me uptight everytime.
But I see what you're saying. However we can be fairly certain with pretty good evidence (for example, selective breeding) that traits are inherited, and so it follows that animals adapt through generations to their surroundings, hence they evolve, and you just follow it backwards really.
Another scary thought. Where did the first living cell come from?
My left testicle.
What, isn't the right one working?
First living cell, who knows? Who indeed even cares? We're here now, that should be more of an issue.
Anyway. My view is, Gay Sex is no more un-natural than having sex with a girl for pleasure and using a birth control procedure. Neither procreate, and both are soley for pleasure.
Errrr...no.
I understand your point that nothing is 100% proved, but theories are not "just guesses".
All well and good as far as it goes, but is woefully inadequate in describing the human experience of sex.
If something has no purpose yet is not disadvantageous to survival, how will it "fade out"?
There you go againm talking about "need" as if evolution has some grand plan - it doesn't, that's not how it works.
Can't be bothered to reply to this waffle, except to say that there isn't a "gay gene".
For the record, I think yerascrote asked earlier, I know a lot of (non religious, just to make that clear) homosexuals who have said that if there were a pill to make them straight, they'd take it. So I think a "cure" would not be rejected by some members of the homosexual community, for want of a better term.
The only reason I can think for a non-religious person to want to change their sexual orientation is because they feel they are are being ostracised and discriminated against by those amongst them and society.
In which case we should be inventing a pill to cure bigotry, prejudice and ignorance, not homosexuality.
I know literally many dozens of gay people and not one has ever said they would take a 'straight' pill ....
I would agree with that ... its the bigots that need the pill.
On the other hand I have come across a few people over the years who said they wished they were gay.
Anyone seen X-men 3? Because the mutant cure there could be comparable, some want it and some don't, and not even necessarily because of society, just because of their own thoughts and feelings.
I dont see why not, its been totally acceptable in society before, it can be again.
I don't think it ever will be again because once something becomes like it has, then generations pass their thoughts onto their children etc. I reckon it would be hard to filter that out, even though obviously not everyone will be influenced by their parents but a lot will.
In Jamaica, for instance, gay people get hunted down and even killed, still in this day and age.
I can see your point, and we've actually accepted asylum seekers from Jamaica for that very reason.
Of course people will always do that annoyingly human thing of not liking people who are different, but what people consider 'different' changes. I'm not suggesting that we will get to a utopia where there are no bigots, but I can see it becoming less and less of a thing to get worked up about.
Genetics doesn't work like that though. There is no one gene for behaviours and identities as complex as sexuality - and genetic researchers don't claim there is. There is an interaction between different genes and environment. There is not "a gay gene" - that's a media simplification/myth.
Thoughts and feelings do not exist in a vacuum - they will always be contingent on culture and society.
I didn't know we were accepting asylum seekers for that reason. Apparently they see ginger people as the devil too...