morality, charity according to evolution

Ok 1st off (just an observation, but)...You seem to have a fixation on natural selection (NS). NS is not the be-all and end-all of evolution (Geez...i don't know how many times i've repeated this point).It is possible for traits that do not have a distinct advantage, to persist in populations. This may be due to the trait being selectively neutral, which would imply that it would not be selected against. Another possibility is that the trait is caused by an allele that is linked, physically, to an advantageous allele, and so is inherited on the back of the latter's selection (genetic hitchhiking). Where have you been living all this time? Homosexuals in most large societies are persecuted, sometimes to the extent of death. i'd expect that only a minor proportion of them are strong enough to step out of the closet. Most will pretend to lead "normal" lives; which includes rearing a family. So yes, they do suppress their natural urges, and not necessarily to just "genetically" survive. Maybe you need a primer on sexual selection (SS)...EZ might oblige you on this. I would think that there does exist the possibility of SS. There exists the idea that homosexual, or at least more effeminate, men are more suited to child rearing than those that are super masculine. Women, unless they're financially independent, choose a parner based more on their ability to raise and take care of a family. The cline that possibly exists among men, in terms of child rearing, might actually provide fertile ground for SS. Are you so certain that Mendel's and Darwin's thoughts are presently held as two opposing schools...

---

"The good Christian should beware the mathematician and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of hell." - St. Augustine

While, I am not convinced that there is a "gay gene", I do think that if it is there that altruism is the best hypothesis for it. Let me be clear, homosexuality is absolutely biological, study after study shows that homosexual brains react much more like heterosexual brains of the opposite sex than their own. I think that homosexuality could be inborn like something congenital, not to suggest that it's a birth defect but that it could arise in much the same manner.Scientific theories and facts are valueless, only their application can have value. The laws that govern genetics are valueless, use of that knowlege to make GE crops or human cloning is not valueless. Watch an animal documentary, any species that has more than handful of offspring at a time will lose many almost immediately... that's a fact of nature. The hardships of the young in nature have nothing to tell us about how to raise our children, it is simply the way it is.

If you are equating bestiality and paedophilia to homosexuality, in that they are caused by one's nature i.e. one has little control over whom one desires sexually, then maybe those that have these desires should not necessarily be judged against.However... There is a very distinct difference between Homosexuality and the other two... In homosexual relationships there usually exists two consenting individuals. Since children and animals are arguably unable to give their informed consent, this places the acts (not the desires themselves) of paedophilia and bestiality on less stable ethical grounds.Maybe not for discussion in this thread... but interesting nonetheless...Coffee House anybody?

---

"The good Christian should beware the mathematician and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of hell." - St. Augustine

Here is a recent article with more evidence of a physiological cause for gender-misalignment.

quote:

---

Lesbians react to the smell of certain bodily odors in ways similar to heterosexual men and different from heterosexual women, new research suggests.

---

Points to some mis-alignment of brain response with gender that probably occurs during fetal development.

Because its a double-edged sword. I've been bombarded by the notion that natural selection is the only 'choice' in an unguided and purposeless existence. I've also been bombarded by the notion that everyones purpose in life is to procreate with the most healthy individual of the opposite sex as possible. And now I have presented three instances that run counter and totally undermine the entire premise of the theory that they've been saying. I've been building up to this point. The hilarity of it is, after the evolutionary model has been explicitly described, some have the temerity to invent theorums that implicitly run counter to the former theory. If you don't have the physical ability to impregnate a memeber of the same sex or lack the physical ability to be impregnated by a member of the same sex, then that kind of precludes any sort advantageous or neutral trait. This level of persecution occurs in Wahhabi-friendly, Islamofascist countries. The only danger presented to the average American or European homosexual is the fear of being patronized to death. Even supposing that was true, how does this make any sense speaking from a naturalistic point of view? Evolving into homosexuals should not be the route that NS wants to go because heterosexual sex is the only way to proliferate genes, which again, I've been told a thousand times, is the only purpose to life. And why would nature need more women to rear children when the majority of species are female? Why would nature need for a male to be effeminate so they can be more affective at child rearing. We're talking about homosexuals, not the normal and average people. I guess that would depend on who is asking the question.

Yeah, maybe homosexuality, pedophilia, beastiality, necrophilia, and rape is just an instance of a person expressing their normal and natural biological urges. I mean, for us to get mad about our children being raped is as valid as getting angry at someone born with blue eyes. There's no need to think of it as some squalid aberration, but rather embrace these notions with an abundance of smootches and huggles. Biology and ethics don't mix. Since there are alot of pedophiles out there, is it the product of biological evolution or the product of some reprehensible minds?

Well the problem seems to be that what you have been bombarded with is some idiot cartoon version of Natural selection and evolution. Wow, you must have a really screwed up idea of what 'homosexual' means, or was that just the sound of someone shifting their goalposts? Or do you have some startling new medical evidence to report? Not quite, heterosexual sex is the only way to pass on genes directly, but a trait can easily exist which causes itself to proliferate without requiring the individual carrying it to procreate themselves, that is the entire point of kin selection. I'm not sure what you mean here, are you saying that you will only allow for a scenario where the gay men and gay women are mating? No heterosexuals allowed. This seems like a ludicrous thought experiment stuffed with straw. One problem is it assumes that the basis for homosexual behaviour in males and females would neccessarily be the same, a pretty unwarranted assumption.TTFN,WK

Why couldn't it be both, it is a sad possibility that evolution might produce its fair proportion of reprehensible mental traits. No, but if you were angry athe fact that someone was born with a particular prediliction then you would be right that it is just as valid.People get mad about these things for reasons totally divorced from evolutionary considerations. It is a sad fact that natural selection can favour strategies such as rape or infanticide, we humans are lucky to be apparently be able to overcome inclinations towards such distasteful behaviours, and for years many homosexuals have had to hide their inclinations because of societies views. If those other behaviours were socially acceptable then I am sure you would see a vast increase in their prevalence, it isn't the prediliction that is neccessarily to be abhorred so much as the failure to overcome it and resist the temptation to follow ones impulses.TTFN,WK

quote:

---

Yeah, maybe homosexuality, pedophilia, beastiality, necrophilia, and rape is just an instance of a person expressing their normal and natural biological urges. I mean, for us to get mad about our children being raped is as valid as getting angry at someone born with blue eyes. There's no need to think of it as some squalid aberration, but rather embrace these notions with an abundance of smootches and huggles.

---

You get confused easily, don't you, nemesis? No one has been talking about accepting these or any other practices -- in fact, this whole discussion is even irrelevant to whether homosexuality should be accepted. This whole subtopic is about how homosexuality can persist in a population despite the initial, intuitive idea that it should be selected against.

---

"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the same sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."
-- H. L. Mencken (quoted on Panda's Thumb)

quote:

---

Yeah, maybe homosexuality, pedophilia, beastiality, necrophilia, and rape is just an instance of a person expressing their normal and natural biological urges. I mean, for us to get mad about our children being raped is as valid as getting angry at someone born with blue eyes. There's no need to think of it as some squalid aberration, but rather embrace these notions with an abundance of smootches and huggles.

---

Do you really draw no line between consenting adults and the others which essentially amount to rape? Children are not psychologically ready for sex and it is essentially abuse from an adult who should know better, sex with animals is cruel to the animal which doesn't have the ability to properly comprehend what is going on, sex with a corpse is a desecration of a person who has died and who obviously isn't able to consent, and rape is a violent, traumatic event.
The only thing that these raping activities have in common with homosexuality is that you think they're immoral. But how moral is it to equate rape with consenting sex? why not equate prostitution with beastiality? or maybe S&M is no different from paedophillia! Get the differences yet? When sex is forced there is real harm, when it is consenting there is no harm!!!

As much as I'd love to explain my reasons for why I believe as I do, there is only so far that I can reach anyone of you. And as much as I want to prove to you that you've unhesitantly bought into a stale system of thought that betrays intuition, you wish not to let that go. A naturalistc argument stands strong until its met with reasoning of a deeper kind. Evolution cannot offer what we know in hearts to be a higher truth. This suppression is commonplace. But even still, there is always room for a revelation that transcends mere sight. Simply put, morality and love cannot aptly be understood by a combination of chance mutations and natural selection. This reduction of what some of you think life really is about, is shockingly depraved and sad.Oops, something lost

i remeber posting earlier in this thread (or was it evolution simplified?) that you rejected ToE on moral grounds. You claimed to reject it on it's scientific implications, and through the course of discussing homosexuality I see that my initial guess was right. You reject ToE for moral reasons, not scientific reasons.Also, your example of how homosexuality is intuitively counter to ToE is false. If it is true that homosexuality somehow disproves evolution, then every mutation that screws up life would disprove evolution. Sorry to tell you the truth, but that isn't the case. In fact, the opposite is true. The bad mutations are selected against. Oops, so much for your argument.Again, I must stress that your argument has no credibility for disproving evolution if you are trying to do so on moralistic grounds. Just because you want something to not be, does not make it not so. IOW, just because I want the Iranian president out of world politics does not mean that he will be out of world politics. The truth of that matter is unavoidable, as is ToE.I don't see why people have to link evolution with amorality. You need to learn to separate biology and ethics. By this, I mean, quit asking what gives us the right to convict others of rape and other such immoral acts. Your argument goes, that they are justified becasue of ToE. That is bull. ToE does not justifiy our behaviours. It only explains how we have the diversity of life that we have through a natural phenomnenon. We still have our own right, be it arrogant to assume so, to make laws governing our behaviour. IOW, we give ourselves the right to do this, not some scientific theory.A perfect example of how society screws with scientific theories is with the Theory of Relativity. Einstien, who, by the way, believed in absolutes, described this phenomnenon of never being able to pinpoint the exact location of atomic particles (i'm pretty sure it was those), but only the general area that they exist. THat's one facet of the theory. Anywho, society decided that this theory meant that absolutes were no more, IOW, moral absolutes were no more. Einstein never intended that to happen.A second example of how society screws up theories is with evolution. When it was first introduced by Darwin, it was used to justify slums and discrimination. IOW, the poor were less fit, so they should be treated like sh*t. It's also been used to justify euthanasia and eugeneics (i.e. Hitler). Now it's being misused to say that we should allow all these acts that are considered immoral. This in turn is being used as a reason to reject ToE.You're not going to overturn one of the most monumental theories of all time with a few simple morality arguments. Morality, and the study of ethics isn't science. Sure, science can be ethical, in that we don't disect living humans and we ask for permission to study dead bodies and other examples. You want to come up with a new scientific theory that explains how we have this diversity, be my guest. Gather all the scientific evidence you can. Find the patterns, find the coincidences that lend support to your proposition. Only thing is, your hypothesis probably won't come close to the ability of ToE to explain the natural world of life.

might I add, that this is no reason to reject ToE.

The last 20 or 30 posts have served to refute many of your claims, or at least, to provide viable and valid alternatives, totally in keeping with ToE. That you choose to ignore them, doesn't mean they aren't there. Would you believe it...none of what i said runs counter to ToE, and in fact has been apart of the theory for most of its lifespan. Really, no "temerity" and "invention" on my part... That you do not know enough about the theory is no one's fault but your own...That's the beauty of science... it "evolves" with the fresh garnering of knowledge. Now i'm really beginnening to wonder where you've been...
Face it... Homosexuals can and do have heterosexual sex.Just because the desire is not there doesn't mean the physical ability isn't. Persecution of homosexuals occurs worldwide. Death is the extreme; many simply hide it to avoid shaming their family. Hey, even in the US...even Oprah did a show on it! Again... They have heterosexual sex. And it has been mentioned by someone else, you don't need to pass on your genes, when your brother or sister can do it for you... You clearly have no idea what sexual selection is. Either that, or you're sticking your fingers in your ears and singing "La la la!"
The selection factor here is what women want...someone to take care of a family. Still applies.... And whether or not they know anything about the subjects?

---

"The good Christian should beware the mathematician and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of hell." - St. Augustine

My post was very clear in what it said... and it was not the above. That you choose to mangle my words, and dismiss the qualification of my point with an arguably baseless assertion, is very telling on your part...