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comment by caelum19
caelum19  ·  3851 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Religion's use.

Sorry, I wasn't very clear.

What I mean is, if a father with the gene had one gay child, and then fell out a tree and died, the gay child wouldn't reproduce and the gene would die.

So that gene would be more succesful if all the other genes insured pre-mature deaths didn't happen, perhaps suggesting it originated from well-off tribes.





b_b  ·  3851 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Gayness is a cultural phenomenon, and quite a young one. It's impact on the spread of genes probably has had zero effect on the gene pool. Until recently, homosexual sex didn't preclude one from having a family. Nobody identified as "gay" until very recently in evolutionary terms, even though males have been having sex with males since long before the dawn of man. For a measurable effect on inheritance, we'll have to wait a lot longer than a handful of generations.

galen  ·  3851 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Oh, sure. It's less of a "this happened every time that gene developed" and more of a "that gene developed once or twice and then this happened, which eventually led to how things are today".