...
Overall, I believe the general consensus is that more people have died in the name of god than any other. I'm sure I could back that up with a little research...
Andrew
Hmmm ... we could turn this around a little bit ... religious people could say that at the End of Days, more people have died due to Satan than in the name of God ... except they can't show the research until after Armageddon.
Erm ... wait ... maybe I'm playing the Devil's Advocate here ... tee, hee, hee ... erm ... or something.
Isn't it kinda humorous that we can have this sort of a discussion here in WoS while elsewhere the thread would have been shot down right after page two (if it had been allowed to progress that far) ... I mean ... we are just having a discussion ... I know it's all fun and games until someone shouts ... "MODERATOR, LOCK THE THREAD BECAUSE I BE OFFENDED, ARR MATEY!!!"
Well ... in any case ... it's just a fairly idle conversation we could be having down at the pub ... the only diff is that after the fight here we'll help each other stand up, a quick masculine hug and we'll get our legs ship-shape again together.
Rather than say atheists, I'd note how many Marxists were in that top ten. That's the poisoned ideology if there is one; atheism is a purely incidental part of it.
Edit: Funnily enough, but the highest name on the list who was the leader of a Western democracy is a Christian i.e. Richard Milhous Nixon. What does that tell you? ;)
No but it is a chemical failing of the brain, somehow. Although politically correct morons will deny this. And many religious people blame homosexuality on the devil, which is just as bad.
who thinks homosexuality is a chemical failing in the brain and needs curing?
i hope you dont.
who thinks homosexuality is a chemical failing in the brain and needs curing?
i hope you dont.
Are you seriously saying that you don't think that homosexuality is a chemical failure in the brain?
Biologically, males are supposed to find *only* adult females attractive, and adult females are supposed to find *only* adult males attractive. This is to encourage breeding and subsequent childbirth, as (to put it at it's simplest and unromantic) you're born, your breed (thereby passing on your genes) and you die. That's it. That's the way evolution has made us.
Now what natural advantage would homosexuality have, in order for evolution to have promoted it? None. The only advantage (and it is an advantage to a sentient mind) is that homosexuality leads to less offspring, as homosexuals don't produce children. This of course is an advantage in that todays crowded world can hardly support such a large population, but that advantage means nothing to evolution. Evolution is not sentient, and in fact promotes too many children as then only the strongest will survive. That's how evolution, like the rest of nature, works. Life is born, it suffers, it dies. Evolution, like nature, is neither morally good nor bad, just indifferent, and devoted to the sole task of continuing the empirical existence of life, regardless of the suffering of individuals, or (huge) groups of individuals.
Basically, homosexuality is undesirable to evolution, as it's counter-productive to the passing on of genes, and so it would not have been encouraged or supported by evolution. And can you seriously suggest that it's not a chemical failing of the brain? Where else do you suppose that the unconscious thought processes that recognise and respond to each individuals' idea of sexual attractiveness take place? And such a process, whether hetrosexual or homosexual is surely chemical, as that's all the brain (and the rest of the body) is, just a huge, enormously complicated chemical factory.
Are you seriously saying that you don't think that homosexuality is a chemical failure in the brain?
Biologically, males are supposed to find *only* adult females attractive, and adult females are supposed to find *only* adult males attractive. This is to encourage breeding and subsequent childbirth, as (to put it at it's simplest and unromantic) you're born, your breed (thereby passing on your genes) and you die. That's it. That's the way evolution has made us.
Now what natural advantage would homosexuality have, in order for evolution to have promoted it? None. The only advantage (and it is an advantage to a sentient mind) is that homosexuality leads to less offspring, as homosexuals don't produce children. This of course is an advantage in that todays crowded world can hardly support such a large population, but that advantage means nothing to evolution. Evolution is not sentient, and in fact promotes too many children as then only the strongest will survive. That's how evolution, like the rest of nature, works. Life is born, it suffers, it dies. Evolution, like nature, is neither morally good nor bad, just indifferent, and devoted to the sole task of continuing the empirical existence of life, regardless of the suffering of individuals, or (huge) groups of individuals.
Basically, homosexuality is undesirable to evolution, as it's counter-productive to the passing on of genes, and so it would not have been encouraged or supported by evolution. And can you seriously suggest that it's not a chemical failing of the brain? Where else do you suppose that the unconscious thought processes that recognise and respond to each individuals' idea of sexual attractiveness take place? And such a process, whether hetrosexual or homosexual is surely chemical, as that's all the brain (and the rest of the body) is, just a huge, enormously complicated chemical factory.
This is the cold, ruthless twisted Darwinism that frightens me the most, and it's not a million miles away from the "logic" and "science" used to justify Hitler's Final Solution.
No but it is a chemical failing of the brain, somehow. Although politically correct morons will deny this. And many religious people blame homosexuality on the devil, which is just as bad.
Never heard of this before and granted i havent looked really at it. Yes the idiots who blame it on the devil or think homosexuals can be 'converted' are laughable.
People are born like that and cant change. Just like someones born short or with ginger hair. Unsure whether its to do with 'a chemical failing of the brain', always thought it was to do with DNA and chromosomes and a mismatch ?
Never heard of this chemical failing on the brain though in any news reports etc i've ever heard/seen.
Now what natural advantage would homosexuality have, in order for evolution to have promoted it? None. [...]
Basically, homosexuality is undesirable to evolution,
BZZT, Wrong!
This would be right if each human was an island, but we're not - we are a social creature. Our survival as a species is less about survival of individuals, but survival of groups.
To take this to an extreme - look at insect colonies, of which most individuals will be sterile, with very few breeders. Are the sterile insects "ill", or somehow faulty because they can't pass on their genes? NO! because their existence is vital to the survival of the colony. In evolution, individual survival is much much less important than group survival in any social animal.
In any species that lives as a group rather than as individuals, non-breeding adults is a selective advantage for the group as a whole, as it frees up resources that can be used to help ensure group survival. Given that a group's genes will be quite intermixed, these traits will have some degree of positive evolutionary bias if it means the group as a whole survives better. A non-reproducing adult won't be burdened by caring for their own child and can act as foster parents for children where the natural parents may have died. A non-reproducing adult not burdened by child care can spend more time gathering firewood or hunting. And thus, it gives the group as a whole an improved chance of survival... and means the group's genes (including the genes that bias an individual towards homosexuality). An individual doesn't have to reproduce to pass on their genetic traits if a sibling who shares (but may not express) these traits does reproduce in the case of groups. You don't have to biologically express genes to carry them.
I would therefore strongly argue that evolutionarily, in a social hunter/gatherer species (i.e. homo sapiens), homosexuality is a feature not a bug when it comes to group survival, and is therefore evolutionarily highly useful. Considering evolution as a black and white thing (it isn't) or a random process (it isn't) is generally not helpful to one's understanding of the process (and is what leads to the fallacies that the fundies like to trot out).
Homosexuality is no more "a chemical failing in the brain" than having blonde hair is a chemical failing of Scandanavians.
It is possible to be friends with someone while still believing that they have a medical condition that ought to be cured, though.
(Not that I believe that either. I just thought I'd better point out that distinction before the accusations really start flying around...)
I have manyyyyyy friends who i believe have medical conditions which ought to be cured. Even more so 1am on a friday night and seeing the stuff theyre coming out with after a few wine gums and shandies !!
This is the cold, ruthless twisted Darwinism that frightens me the most, and it's not a million miles away from the "logic" and "science" used to justify Hitler's Final Solution.
It's also scientifically so wrong it isn't even wrong: natural selection and evolution doesn't work like that (see previous post).
Cain slew Abel Seth knew not why
For if the children of Israel were to multiply
Why must any of the children die?
So he asked the Lord
And the Lord said:
"Man means nothing he means less to me
than the lowiliest cactus flower
or the humblest yucca tree
he chases round this desert
cause he thinks that's where i'll be
that's why i love mankind
I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee
from the squalor and the filth and the misery
How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me
That's why i love mankind"
The Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree
The Buddhists and the Hindus joined on satellite TV
They picked their four greatest priests
And they began to speak
They said "Lord the plague is on the world
Lord no man is free
The temples that we built to you
Have tumbled into the sea
Lord, if you won't take care of us
Won't you please please let us be?"
And the Lord said
And the Lord said
"I burn down your cities--how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
You must all be crazy to put your faith in me
That's why i love mankind
You really need me
That's why i love mankind"
I would therefore strongly argue that evolutionarily, in a social hunter/gatherer species (i.e. homo sapiens), homosexuality is a feature not a bug when it comes to group survival, and is therefore evolutionarily highly useful. Considering evolution as a black and white thing (it isn't) or a random process (it isn't) is generally not helpful to one's understanding of the process (and is what leads to the fallacies that the fundies like to trot out).
Whilst nowhere near as morally repugnant as eugenics, it has to be said that group selection is just as bogus scientifically. It's an evolutionary unstable strategy and was thoroughly demolished in the sixties by John Maynard Smith and others. This is dealt with very well in Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene. Kin selection (where we do things that will benefit our relatives) or reciprocal altruism (where we do good deeds in return for others) are the more acceptable alternatives.
Whilst nowhere near as morally repugnant as eugenics, it has to be said that group selection is just as bogus scientifically. It's an evolutionary unstable strategy and was thoroughly demolished in the sixties by John Maynard Smith and others. This is dealt with very well in Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene. Kin selection (where we do things that will benefit our relatives) or reciprocal altruism (where we do good deeds in return for others) are the more acceptable alternatives.
Blimey i feel so thick as i havent the foggiest what youre on about in that paragraph. Serves me right for reading Loaded! for all those years ;)
This is the cold, ruthless twisted Darwinism that frightens me the most, and it's not a million miles away from the "logic" and "science" used to justify Hitler's Final Solution.
Ah, are you referring to my "EXTERMINATE ALL POOFTERS" post? Er, I didn't make such a post. I simply said that homosexuality is an occasional flaw that's undesirable in evolutinary terms. I believe that to be true.
I also believe that someone's sexuality does not affect their morality - some of the best people in the world are gay, and some of the worst. And look at the worst; to the best of my knowledge, Hitler, Stalin and that Chinese leader whose name escapes me (by numbers they are the three biggest mass murderers of all time) were all hetero-sexual. Most of the people I detest in the world are hetero, such as Blair, Bush, Thatcher and Prescot, Bill Gates, Terry Christian, Mark Lamar, Posh Spice, and other people. There are gays who I detest, such as Rusell T. Davis and Graham Norton, but not because they're gay (Davis screws up Doctor Who, and Norton is just so irritating). I really like John Barrowman (Captain Jack from Doctor Who and Torchwood), the Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, Freddie Mercury etc, and they're all gay. Doesn't alter the quality of their work, or what they're like as people or anything, so why should it bother me if they fancy men or women? They can do what they like in privacy, same as the rest of us.
And I did not advocate in any way the imprisonment or execution of gays, despite what you seem to choose to read into my post. It was not twisted Darwinism, it was, as far as I can tell, literal Darwinism. Far more importantly, I did not, and do not, support any anti-homosexual groups.
Though to someone like you (to judge by your response), anyone saying anything even remotely derogatory to gays must of necessity be a Nazi who wants to see all non-white, non-straight, non-normal people slaughtered.
And you yourself are a Nazi, if you think that everyone should think exactly like you do, and if they don't then they're automatically foaming-at-the-mouth hatred filled monsters.
homosexuals can bear children, or do you think they are sterile? in fact you'll find many homosexuals that have children of their own.
the people who cant bear children are usually disabled or born with out that choice. they would be the ones who are against evolution in your opinion.
You really have misunderstood here, haven't you? Homosexuals can have children, yes, but mostly they don't. When two men have sex, what are the chances of conception? None. When two women have sex, what chance is there of the patter of tiny feet, nine months later? Again, none.
Yes, using science, or a turkey baster, or whatever, a man can get a women pregnant without them actually having sex together, even if one or both of them is gay, but that's a rare occurance, and so would not be encouraged by evolution.
And yes, straight people can be sterile (as can gay), but that's another occasional genetic flaw, not something supported by evolution.
quote=gasman;216572]It is possible to be friends with someone while still believing that they have a medical condition that ought to be cured, though.[/quote]
True.
It's people like the Nazis who won't associate with (to them) non-perfect people.
This would be right if each human was an island, but we're not - we are a social creature. Our survival as a species is less about survival of individuals, but survival of groups.
In evolutionary terms, the individual means nothing, I've already made that point. My argument is right (if it is) even though man is not an island.
To take this to an extreme - look at insect colonies, of which most individuals will be sterile, with very few breeders. Are the sterile insects "ill", or somehow faulty because they can't pass on their genes? NO! because their existence is vital to the survival of the colony. In evolution, individual survival is much much less important than group survival in any social animal.
Yes, but insects have different classes with pre-defined, pre-programmed purposes, which each insect performs uncomplainingly. Their whole society, and therefore their existence, depends upon that system. Man is totally different - we choose to form societies, and our societies vary from place to place, time to time, and many people are unhappy with their percieved places in their societies, and act to change either their place or the society itself. Unlike the stable insect societies, which are incomparable to man's.
[/quote]
In any species that lives as a group rather than as individuals, non-breeding adults is a selective advantage for the group as a whole, as it frees up resources that can be used to help ensure group survival.[/quote]
Not in humans. Most gays don't breed (produce children), but they still have sex, and still have the same relationship troubles and miseries that staright people have.
And lots of straight people (like me) have no kids. So what possible advantage do gay people offer mankind, that straight people don't (aside from lowering the population, which as I said before is counter to evolutionary purposes)?
Given that a group's genes will be quite intermixed, these traits will have some degree of positive evolutionary bias if it means the group as a whole survives better. A non-reproducing adult won't be burdened by caring for their own child and can act as foster parents for children where the natural parents may have died.
So can straight people. I agree that gay people who have the edge there, but I don't think that so small an advantage would swerve the direction of evolution in homosexualites' favour, when the most-gays-don't-have-kids effect would affect evolution in the opposite diection.
A non-reproducing adult not burdened by child care can spend more time gathering firewood or hunting. And thus, it gives the group as a whole an improved chance of survival... and means the group's genes (including the genes that bias an individual towards homosexuality). An individual doesn't have to reproduce to pass on their genetic traits if a sibling who shares (but may not express) these traits does reproduce in the case of groups. You don't have to biologically express genes to carry them.
No, I think that more kids, produced by straight group members who would otherwise be gay, would increase the chance of the groups survival more than the extra resource gathering of gay members. Especially long ago, when our ancestors were far hardier than they are now, and the kids needed less immediate attention.
[/quote]
I would therefore strongly argue that evolutionarily, in a social hunter/gatherer species (i.e. homo sapiens), homosexuality is a feature not a bug when it comes to group survival, and is therefore evolutionarily highly useful. Considering evolution as a black and white thing (it isn't) or a random process (it isn't) is generally not helpful to one's understanding of the process (and is what leads to the fallacies that the fundies like to trot out)
I'd definately disagree with you about the value (or otherwise) of homosexuality in evolution, but I'm glad you expressed your reasoning. And yes, evolution is far from black/white, yes/no, etc. And homosexuality might offer some (or many) advantages to evolution, but I think that the resultant lowering of the birth rate (which is a major concern to survival, and therefore evolution) would far outweigh any possible benefits of a homosexual thread.
That's what I think, though of course I'm certainly no expert in evolution, even if expertise is currently possible in so huge a field.
Homosexuality is no more "a chemical failing in the brain" than having blonde hair is a chemical failing of Scandanavians.
What do you disagree with? The word "failing" or the word "chemical", or my believe that sexual attraction is brain related?
It's also scientifically so wrong it isn't even wrong: natural selection and evolution doesn't work like that (see previous post).
If that's true, then why don't you present any evidence in your post?
Yes, I could be wrong, but it's what I've learnt from my, admittedly not to indepth, readings on evolution (and we weren't taught evolution in my school*, though we were taught Christianity as fact).
* The "school" (ha ha, the standard of learning was a joke) I was forced to attend was in England, by the way, so it's not only parts of America that force religion on you over evolution, despite the way it sometimes seems).
Yes, I could be wrong, but it's what I've learnt from my, admittedly not to indepth, readings on evolution (and we weren't taught evolution in my school*, though we were taught Christianity as fact).
What we get taught about evolution at school is, unfortunately, pretty much a load of rubbish. For the past forty-odd years it's been "central dogma", to quote Francis Crick, that DNA is the only thing upon which natural selection works. That means that for anything to give you an evolutionary advantage, you must have been born with it. Acquired traits, of which sexual orientation appears to be one, can have no evolutionary advantage.
Comments
Hmmm ... we could turn this around a little bit ... religious people could say that at the End of Days, more people have died due to Satan than in the name of God ... except they can't show the research until after Armageddon.
Erm ... wait ... maybe I'm playing the Devil's Advocate here ... tee, hee, hee ... erm ... or something.
Skarpo
:-)
You brought it on yerself mister :lol:
666? No, wait mister ... I'm pretty sure it says 999!
;-)
Well ... in any case ... it's just a fairly idle conversation we could be having down at the pub ... the only diff is that after the fight here we'll help each other stand up, a quick masculine hug and we'll get our legs ship-shape again together.
Skarpo
:-)
Edit: Funnily enough, but the highest name on the list who was the leader of a Western democracy is a Christian i.e. Richard Milhous Nixon. What does that tell you? ;)
If i had a pound for everytime you mentioned masculine hugs or hugs here at the forum amongst WOSers i'll be very rich.
Skarpo, in the UK we dont really hug males or even male friends !
it turns out god does exist
:lol::lol::lol::lol:
genius
who thinks homosexuality is a chemical failing in the brain and needs curing?
i hope you dont.
Did they fail chemistry in school?
(Wait, what, I misunderstood the proposition on the previous page ... nah!)
Skarpo
:-)
Are you seriously saying that you don't think that homosexuality is a chemical failure in the brain?
Biologically, males are supposed to find *only* adult females attractive, and adult females are supposed to find *only* adult males attractive. This is to encourage breeding and subsequent childbirth, as (to put it at it's simplest and unromantic) you're born, your breed (thereby passing on your genes) and you die. That's it. That's the way evolution has made us.
Now what natural advantage would homosexuality have, in order for evolution to have promoted it? None. The only advantage (and it is an advantage to a sentient mind) is that homosexuality leads to less offspring, as homosexuals don't produce children. This of course is an advantage in that todays crowded world can hardly support such a large population, but that advantage means nothing to evolution. Evolution is not sentient, and in fact promotes too many children as then only the strongest will survive. That's how evolution, like the rest of nature, works. Life is born, it suffers, it dies. Evolution, like nature, is neither morally good nor bad, just indifferent, and devoted to the sole task of continuing the empirical existence of life, regardless of the suffering of individuals, or (huge) groups of individuals.
Basically, homosexuality is undesirable to evolution, as it's counter-productive to the passing on of genes, and so it would not have been encouraged or supported by evolution. And can you seriously suggest that it's not a chemical failing of the brain? Where else do you suppose that the unconscious thought processes that recognise and respond to each individuals' idea of sexual attractiveness take place? And such a process, whether hetrosexual or homosexual is surely chemical, as that's all the brain (and the rest of the body) is, just a huge, enormously complicated chemical factory.
This is the cold, ruthless twisted Darwinism that frightens me the most, and it's not a million miles away from the "logic" and "science" used to justify Hitler's Final Solution.
https://discordapp.com/invite/cZt59EQ
of course i don't.
homosexuals can bear children, or do you think they are sterile? in fact you'll find many homosexuals that have children of their own.
the people who cant bear children are usually disabled or born with out that choice. they would be the ones who are against evolution in your opinion.
Never heard of this before and granted i havent looked really at it. Yes the idiots who blame it on the devil or think homosexuals can be 'converted' are laughable.
People are born like that and cant change. Just like someones born short or with ginger hair. Unsure whether its to do with 'a chemical failing of the brain', always thought it was to do with DNA and chromosomes and a mismatch ?
Never heard of this chemical failing on the brain though in any news reports etc i've ever heard/seen.
It is possible to be friends with someone while still believing that they have a medical condition that ought to be cured, though.
(Not that I believe that either. I just thought I'd better point out that distinction before the accusations really start flying around...)
BZZT, Wrong!
This would be right if each human was an island, but we're not - we are a social creature. Our survival as a species is less about survival of individuals, but survival of groups.
To take this to an extreme - look at insect colonies, of which most individuals will be sterile, with very few breeders. Are the sterile insects "ill", or somehow faulty because they can't pass on their genes? NO! because their existence is vital to the survival of the colony. In evolution, individual survival is much much less important than group survival in any social animal.
In any species that lives as a group rather than as individuals, non-breeding adults is a selective advantage for the group as a whole, as it frees up resources that can be used to help ensure group survival. Given that a group's genes will be quite intermixed, these traits will have some degree of positive evolutionary bias if it means the group as a whole survives better. A non-reproducing adult won't be burdened by caring for their own child and can act as foster parents for children where the natural parents may have died. A non-reproducing adult not burdened by child care can spend more time gathering firewood or hunting. And thus, it gives the group as a whole an improved chance of survival... and means the group's genes (including the genes that bias an individual towards homosexuality). An individual doesn't have to reproduce to pass on their genetic traits if a sibling who shares (but may not express) these traits does reproduce in the case of groups. You don't have to biologically express genes to carry them.
I would therefore strongly argue that evolutionarily, in a social hunter/gatherer species (i.e. homo sapiens), homosexuality is a feature not a bug when it comes to group survival, and is therefore evolutionarily highly useful. Considering evolution as a black and white thing (it isn't) or a random process (it isn't) is generally not helpful to one's understanding of the process (and is what leads to the fallacies that the fundies like to trot out).
Homosexuality is no more "a chemical failing in the brain" than having blonde hair is a chemical failing of Scandanavians.
I have manyyyyyy friends who i believe have medical conditions which ought to be cured. Even more so 1am on a friday night and seeing the stuff theyre coming out with after a few wine gums and shandies !!
It's also scientifically so wrong it isn't even wrong: natural selection and evolution doesn't work like that (see previous post).
Come on, do you really have any doubt?
Now, let's sing all together this beautiful hymn.
GOD'S SONG
(Randy Newman)
Cain slew Abel Seth knew not why
For if the children of Israel were to multiply
Why must any of the children die?
So he asked the Lord
And the Lord said:
"Man means nothing he means less to me
than the lowiliest cactus flower
or the humblest yucca tree
he chases round this desert
cause he thinks that's where i'll be
that's why i love mankind
I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee
from the squalor and the filth and the misery
How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me
That's why i love mankind"
The Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree
The Buddhists and the Hindus joined on satellite TV
They picked their four greatest priests
And they began to speak
They said "Lord the plague is on the world
Lord no man is free
The temples that we built to you
Have tumbled into the sea
Lord, if you won't take care of us
Won't you please please let us be?"
And the Lord said
And the Lord said
"I burn down your cities--how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
You must all be crazy to put your faith in me
That's why i love mankind
You really need me
That's why i love mankind"
Whilst nowhere near as morally repugnant as eugenics, it has to be said that group selection is just as bogus scientifically. It's an evolutionary unstable strategy and was thoroughly demolished in the sixties by John Maynard Smith and others. This is dealt with very well in Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene. Kin selection (where we do things that will benefit our relatives) or reciprocal altruism (where we do good deeds in return for others) are the more acceptable alternatives.
Blimey i feel so thick as i havent the foggiest what youre on about in that paragraph. Serves me right for reading Loaded! for all those years ;)
Ah, are you referring to my "EXTERMINATE ALL POOFTERS" post? Er, I didn't make such a post. I simply said that homosexuality is an occasional flaw that's undesirable in evolutinary terms. I believe that to be true.
I also believe that someone's sexuality does not affect their morality - some of the best people in the world are gay, and some of the worst. And look at the worst; to the best of my knowledge, Hitler, Stalin and that Chinese leader whose name escapes me (by numbers they are the three biggest mass murderers of all time) were all hetero-sexual. Most of the people I detest in the world are hetero, such as Blair, Bush, Thatcher and Prescot, Bill Gates, Terry Christian, Mark Lamar, Posh Spice, and other people. There are gays who I detest, such as Rusell T. Davis and Graham Norton, but not because they're gay (Davis screws up Doctor Who, and Norton is just so irritating). I really like John Barrowman (Captain Jack from Doctor Who and Torchwood), the Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, Freddie Mercury etc, and they're all gay. Doesn't alter the quality of their work, or what they're like as people or anything, so why should it bother me if they fancy men or women? They can do what they like in privacy, same as the rest of us.
And I did not advocate in any way the imprisonment or execution of gays, despite what you seem to choose to read into my post. It was not twisted Darwinism, it was, as far as I can tell, literal Darwinism. Far more importantly, I did not, and do not, support any anti-homosexual groups.
Though to someone like you (to judge by your response), anyone saying anything even remotely derogatory to gays must of necessity be a Nazi who wants to see all non-white, non-straight, non-normal people slaughtered.
And you yourself are a Nazi, if you think that everyone should think exactly like you do, and if they don't then they're automatically foaming-at-the-mouth hatred filled monsters.
You really have misunderstood here, haven't you? Homosexuals can have children, yes, but mostly they don't. When two men have sex, what are the chances of conception? None. When two women have sex, what chance is there of the patter of tiny feet, nine months later? Again, none.
Yes, using science, or a turkey baster, or whatever, a man can get a women pregnant without them actually having sex together, even if one or both of them is gay, but that's a rare occurance, and so would not be encouraged by evolution.
And yes, straight people can be sterile (as can gay), but that's another occasional genetic flaw, not something supported by evolution.
quote=gasman;216572]It is possible to be friends with someone while still believing that they have a medical condition that ought to be cured, though.[/quote]
True.
It's people like the Nazis who won't associate with (to them) non-perfect people.
In evolutionary terms, the individual means nothing, I've already made that point. My argument is right (if it is) even though man is not an island.
Yes, but insects have different classes with pre-defined, pre-programmed purposes, which each insect performs uncomplainingly. Their whole society, and therefore their existence, depends upon that system. Man is totally different - we choose to form societies, and our societies vary from place to place, time to time, and many people are unhappy with their percieved places in their societies, and act to change either their place or the society itself. Unlike the stable insect societies, which are incomparable to man's.
[/quote]
In any species that lives as a group rather than as individuals, non-breeding adults is a selective advantage for the group as a whole, as it frees up resources that can be used to help ensure group survival.[/quote]
Not in humans. Most gays don't breed (produce children), but they still have sex, and still have the same relationship troubles and miseries that staright people have.
And lots of straight people (like me) have no kids. So what possible advantage do gay people offer mankind, that straight people don't (aside from lowering the population, which as I said before is counter to evolutionary purposes)?
So can straight people. I agree that gay people who have the edge there, but I don't think that so small an advantage would swerve the direction of evolution in homosexualites' favour, when the most-gays-don't-have-kids effect would affect evolution in the opposite diection.
No, I think that more kids, produced by straight group members who would otherwise be gay, would increase the chance of the groups survival more than the extra resource gathering of gay members. Especially long ago, when our ancestors were far hardier than they are now, and the kids needed less immediate attention.
[/quote]
I would therefore strongly argue that evolutionarily, in a social hunter/gatherer species (i.e. homo sapiens), homosexuality is a feature not a bug when it comes to group survival, and is therefore evolutionarily highly useful. Considering evolution as a black and white thing (it isn't) or a random process (it isn't) is generally not helpful to one's understanding of the process (and is what leads to the fallacies that the fundies like to trot out)
I'd definately disagree with you about the value (or otherwise) of homosexuality in evolution, but I'm glad you expressed your reasoning. And yes, evolution is far from black/white, yes/no, etc. And homosexuality might offer some (or many) advantages to evolution, but I think that the resultant lowering of the birth rate (which is a major concern to survival, and therefore evolution) would far outweigh any possible benefits of a homosexual thread.
That's what I think, though of course I'm certainly no expert in evolution, even if expertise is currently possible in so huge a field.
What do you disagree with? The word "failing" or the word "chemical", or my believe that sexual attraction is brain related?
If that's true, then why don't you present any evidence in your post?
Yes, I could be wrong, but it's what I've learnt from my, admittedly not to indepth, readings on evolution (and we weren't taught evolution in my school*, though we were taught Christianity as fact).
* The "school" (ha ha, the standard of learning was a joke) I was forced to attend was in England, by the way, so it's not only parts of America that force religion on you over evolution, despite the way it sometimes seems).
Really. 7-6 you say. I never thought it would be that close. Who scored teh winner?
Hunter Pence put them ahead but Lance Berkman lead the game.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_sexual_orientation
What we get taught about evolution at school is, unfortunately, pretty much a load of rubbish. For the past forty-odd years it's been "central dogma", to quote Francis Crick, that DNA is the only thing upon which natural selection works. That means that for anything to give you an evolutionary advantage, you must have been born with it. Acquired traits, of which sexual orientation appears to be one, can have no evolutionary advantage.
Pence huh? I told the wife it must be Pence. But Berkman - who'd have guessed it was ol'LB? That guy's a wow.