How can gayness have a genetic basis?

[Phil153]

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twin studies...show a genetic component

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Sure. Many behavioral traits are partly genetic. But how large is the effect? Can you get me a %? The studies I've read only show partial correlation.

[L'ennemi.]

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Why do you think it's often stated that males tend to be attracted to people like their mothers? Conditioning. And that's in normal individuals.

Putting it down entirely or mostly to genes (which the evidence does not support) is taking away from where the responsibility usually lies - which is with the gay.

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Or with the very ugly mother.

[All-In Flynn]

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It could also be an unavoidable, rare by-product of something else. Not everything is fit. Do you think Tay-Sachs has a genetic basis?

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~10% = not 'rare' by my standards... The (possible) unfitness of gayness only becomes a problem if you believe the gene to be very old, which I've already said I do. My thinking is that if it is that old, it can't be unfit. Yet I can't see how it could be fit. Show gayness as a recent emergence and the problem goes away. Get me?

And while I'm not a doctor, Wikipedia certainly thinks Tay-Sachs is genetic...

"Most HEXA mutations are rare, and do not occur in genetically isolated populations..." so as a counterexample for gayness it's apples and oranges (Tay-Sachs for Gay Sex, Homosexual unfitness for Hexosaminidase A deficiency [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img])

But the problem with the by-product theory is that the correlation needs to be weak or otherwise rare - if the link between catalyst and catamite is too strong, I don't see how the trait could spread to become ubiquitous - gayness seems to be too strong a disincentive to successful reproduction.

Forgive the puns please.

[All-In Flynn]

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We can do calculus, even though that obviously was not selected for.

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The intellectual 'software' we use to perform those tasks very definitely was selected for, however.

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Nor would there necessarily be strong negative selective pressure, since critters can both reproduce and have gay sex.

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Indeed they can, but I don't see that they would inevitably tend to.

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Possibly, or rather, likely, some important trait that was selected for has a side effect of sometimes causing same sex attraction.

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How often would this trait occur? How could it occur with this ~10% figure we see today and still be evolutionarily fit? Even a 0.5% impedance of reproduction would have significant impact in the fulness of evolutionary time.

[All-In Flynn]

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Why do you think it's often stated that males tend to be attracted to people like their mothers? Conditioning. And that's in normal individuals.

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Putting it down entirely or mostly to genes (which the evidence does not support) is taking away from where the responsibility usually lies - which is with the gay.

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So... due to our conditioning, we're all to blame for wanting to [censored] our mothers? I don't follow...

[Bill Haywood]

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Oral histories of gays are very telling. Time after time in coming out stories people describe their desperate attempts to be straight, often lasting for decades. For them, it's clearly of biological origin.

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No, not really. Few people can understand and control the basis of their urges, many of which arise from something as simple a childhood experience, or wiring that gets crossed during childhood between affection and sexual attraction toward males.

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Are you conflating biological and genetic? I purposefully specified a biological basis, not a genetic. "a childhood experience, or wiring that gets crossed" are exactly the sorts of things I wanted to allow for as possible causes. By biological, I mean a powerful trait beyond choice. It might be genetically "intended," or it might be a variant in development after conception ("childhood experience" or "crossed wires"). Or both. There has to be a genetic element, but I think the post-conception explanations have momentum.

The oral histories demonstrate there is something inexorable about homosexuality, for at least many gays. This means the OP has to inquire about the biology (whether genetic or developmental or both), even though evolution makes it confusing. That was my point.

And I would say that foot fetishes and the like are also biological, in that they are intense urges emanating from brain structure, not the result of a fad or a weak, sinful will. But I think we can safely say that foot fetishes were not selected for, yet there they are.

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Many behavioral traits are partly genetic. But how large is the effect? Can you get me a %?

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Asked and answered. I'm not suggesting specific coding as the explanation.

[Leaky Eye]

Humans evolved in largely polygynous social structures. This structure leaves most males without sexual outlets in the form of females. And most female with not enough of their male to go around for purposes other than reproduction. Homosexual tendencies would relieve a lot of social tensions in this situation.

[soon2bepro]

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twin studies...show a genetic component

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Sure. Many behavioral traits are partly genetic. But how large is the effect? Can you get me a %? The studies I've read only show partial correlation.

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Also consider that being in the womb together may alter or even "synchronize" their behaviours.

[All-In Flynn]

Perhaps they would, but by the very theory you lay out, any gene causing such would inevitably fail to take hold. It's not as though there's a separate 'loser' dynasty that evolves gaynesss to cope with its inability to reproduce - if it's unable to reproduce, it dies out.

[MelchyBeau]

I thought it was believed that the gene that caused women to be very fertile could cause men to be gay.