Neither nature nor nurture?
Fine article over at The Boston Globe on what might make people gay or straight. The writer doesn't hesitate to mention why the debate about this has important political/social ramifications either, which is a nice change. There's also a pretty decent overview of recent scientific studies on the issue.
There is one other thing I wish the article had covered, however. It discusses the "evolutionary paradox" of homosexuality - that is, the fact that gay people are much less likely to produce children using their own genetic material. This is (1) not a bad thing and (2) changing, but generally it holds, and from an evolutionary perspective it's a drawback; of course, humanity is so firmly established on the Earth that we don't exactly have to struggle to survive (not en masse, anyway). But link that to something like this:
Canadian researchers have consistently documented a "big-brother effect," finding that the chances of a boy being gay increase with each additional older brother he has.
Might it be that one of the reasons a person might be born homosexual is because evolutionarily speaking overpopulation is bad for us? That is, could this be a mild, evolutionarily adaptive curb on our constant reproduction in cases where there are too many people for the enviroment?
It's just a random idea that occurred while reading the article, and I don't think it says anything either good or bad about homosexuals, but it might be interesting to research more fully.
There is one other thing I wish the article had covered, however. It discusses the "evolutionary paradox" of homosexuality - that is, the fact that gay people are much less likely to produce children using their own genetic material. This is (1) not a bad thing and (2) changing, but generally it holds, and from an evolutionary perspective it's a drawback; of course, humanity is so firmly established on the Earth that we don't exactly have to struggle to survive (not en masse, anyway). But link that to something like this:
Canadian researchers have consistently documented a "big-brother effect," finding that the chances of a boy being gay increase with each additional older brother he has.
Might it be that one of the reasons a person might be born homosexual is because evolutionarily speaking overpopulation is bad for us? That is, could this be a mild, evolutionarily adaptive curb on our constant reproduction in cases where there are too many people for the enviroment?
It's just a random idea that occurred while reading the article, and I don't think it says anything either good or bad about homosexuals, but it might be interesting to research more fully.
Your fourth paragraph presents questions I've never considered. But how 'bout this one: the chances that you'll be homosexual the more older brothers you've got will of course increase, because you're getting closer to the 1-in-10 mean which most scientists espouse. Simple probability in other words.
Posted by
Alfred Soto |
8:34 PM
Woah, that's so untrue. If you have a truly random 1-in-10 chance of being born homosexual (a figure the article I linked to questions, by the way), you always have a one in ten chance, whether you're the first son your parents have or the thirteenth.
It's like this: If you flip a quarter ten times and it comes up heads each time, how likely is it to come up heads the next time? Common sense tells us that it's not going to be as likely as tails, but the truth is that coin has exactly the same chance of coming up heads (50%, under ideal conditions) that it does any other times it is flipped.
It's true that what is unlikely is having the coin flip (or the baby) go the same way multiple times in a row, but as each happens it has the same chance it always does.
So, if on that eleventh coin flip, we ask "is it more likely that this flip will be heads than tails?", the answer is (and always will be) no (still assuming ideal conditions).
Where this comes in here is this: Yes, it is more likely you will have a gay son if you have three sons as opposed to one. But probability gives no reason for why it would usually be the third of those three sons that is gay. Do you see what I mean?
It's kind of a tricky thing to wrap your head around, but this sort of thing is why statistics can be such a powerful force for good or ill - they don't make common sense in a lot of ways.
Also consider this: If your thesis was true, than the chance should increase based on the number of older siblings, not just older brothers. But it seems as if it's just older males who effect the process (I think - we should look up the study), which suggests something more than blind chance.
Posted by
Ian |
10:29 PM
Didn't you have some theories involving homosexuality and overpopulation a long time ago, Ian? It sounds vaguely familiar, like from during or before high school, and my memory associates your name with it.
Oh, and I'm afraid it's time for Alfred to retake his stats course. ;-)
Posted by
Anonymous |
10:34 PM
Bah, you beat me to it. And with a much more informative and less condescending explanation, to boot.
Posted by
Anonymous |
10:35 PM
And I've never taken a stats course - just read a really interesting book by Stephen Jay Gould on batting averages.
I might have, Dan - I recall learning in high school that in zoos homosexuality in the animals tends to happen when there are more animals than the space provided for them can really bear. Given how ridiculously overpopulated we are, I think it's at least possible something similar happens with us.
Although again, I hasten to add that I don't think if such a thing were found to be true that it would mean anything bad about gay people.
Posted by
Ian |
11:29 PM
I will stick to the arts.
Posted by
Alfred Soto |
10:54 AM
Aww, don't go away mad...
(also, did my explanation make any sense at all? I can't tell)
Posted by
Ian |
1:44 PM