Thomas Eshuis wrote:Not to mention the goal post shifting, first it was the blindly asserted risk of STDs now it's suddenly weakness and feminity.

I've shifted no goals, and I've not "blindly asserted" anything about STD rates, I provided a source for that:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6893897

Statistically, MSM's have elevated STD rates compared to their peers. I've done some work for my near family members working in reproductive health, and I know that there is a lot of research easily verifiable on this - there's nothing malicious in the fact, it's just a fact, MSM's get it on. For that matter, East Asians have fewer STD's than my particular ethnic group, and women have fewer motorcycle accidents than my sex. It's just statistical facts, evolution doesn't mind how we feel about them. DNA is DNA, it doesn't judge.

@Spearthrower: Thanks. I think you understand that there's nothing pernicious about it. Evolution just... is what it is.

scott1328 wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

trogs wrote:

scott1328 wrote:Way to miss a fucking point.

You implied that homsexual men are weak and effeminate and thus attract violence from those men inclined to kill.

So you agree at least that they are victimised.

Well, if you claim that there aren't a high proportion of small or effeminate men who identify as gay, here's more data for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_an ... siological

Can I just get this out of the way once and for all?

Trogs, do you possess any negative stereotypes that other people might justly conceive of as prejudice against homosexuals?

While you're at it ask him the lenght of his dick. I imagine the answers will be equally honest.

Just to clarify why I am doing this.... having studied Biological Anthropology, you often find yourself in a situation where you're either listening to, or making statements that seem absolutely horrid at face value, but you feel obliged to follow the facts where they lead regardless of whether they sit well in your modern social or moral predilections or sense of justice.

For example, there's ample evidence from the earliest human ancestors onwards that women were used as bartering items between human groups to extend kinship and lower inter-group violence. Or that rape is an evolutionary viable strategy. Or that menstrual synchronicity is a biological device used to exploit and deceive males.

Now, any and all of these claims might turn out to be wrong (and have in the latter case), but within the context of an academic discussion, they're generally meant to be considered within that context, as an 'is' not an 'ought'.

Please don't misunderstand me: if trogs is perpetuating prejudiced stereotypes, I hope you know that I'd be the first to pound that bullshit down: but this is the Biological Sciences forum, and as such, I would assume that we would first regard the evidence for a claim before considering nefarious motives.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:Also, going by your logic, lesbians have the least risk of STDs compared to boht gay men and straight people.
Kinda refutes the homophobia > evolutionary STD fear.

Maybe.

But the patterns of homophobia toward men and women are quite different. They're associated by human convention, and that's pretty recent, since the 1980s.

Spearthrower wrote:
Can I just get this out of the way once and for all?

Trogs, do you possess any negative stereotypes that other people might justly conceive of as prejudice against homosexuals?

Nope. I think there's good data that gays tend to be promiscuous, heavy-drinking and godless. Some will say that those are negative stereotypes. But those are my people. ^_^

I think it's silly to deny that they're easily victimizable, though. You may think of that as a negative stereotype, if you like... I don't, any more than it is in women or kids. Gays just get targeted, beat up, and killed by violent psychos a lot more than their hetero peers. Sad fact of life.

trogs wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:
Can I just get this out of the way once and for all?

Trogs, do you possess any negative stereotypes that other people might justly conceive of as prejudice against homosexuals?

Nope. I think there's good data that gays tend to be atheists and promiscuous. In other words, my type of people. ^_^

I think it's silly to deny that they're easily victimizable, though. You may think of that as a negative stereotype, if you like... I don't, any more than it is in women or kids. Gays just get targeted, beat up, and killed by psychos a lot. Sad fact of life.

And based on your previous statement on why this is so,this is due to the fact that they are weak and effeminate.

scott1328 wrote:

trogs wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:
Can I just get this out of the way once and for all?

Trogs, do you possess any negative stereotypes that other people might justly conceive of as prejudice against homosexuals?

Nope. I think there's good data that gays tend to be atheists and promiscuous. In other words, my type of people. ^_^

I think it's silly to deny that they're easily victimizable, though. You may think of that as a negative stereotype, if you like... I don't, any more than it is in women or kids. Gays just get targeted, beat up, and killed by psychos a lot. Sad fact of life.

And based on your previous statement on why this is so,this is due to the fact that they are weak and effeminate.

On average, slightly more so than their heterosexual peers, yeah. Plus, socially marginalised.

trogs wrote:

Sendraks wrote:

trogs wrote: and that in observed environments, MSM's generally have higher STD transmission.

The important word you're missing here is "because" and then this is followed by an "explanation."

Otherwise you're just making an assertion and implying something (that MSMs have higher STD transmission just by dint of being MSMs) which is not born out by the evidence.

I don't agree.

That's really irrelevant.

trogs wrote: I don't know why MSM's have higher STD transmission.

Then you have no basis to claim it's caused by homosexuality or MSM.

trogs wrote: It would be easier to guess if there were studies of whether this was the case among other animals (especially primates), but I don't know of any such studies... it might be an artefact of modern human environments, or it might be the case amongst primeval humans as well as Bonobos, Chimps, etc.

I doubt it's been studied, it would be a... ballsy grant application to file. ^_^

So you're just making shit up as you go along. Glad you cleared that up.

trogs wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:Not to mention the goal post shifting, first it was the blindly asserted risk of STDs now it's suddenly weakness and feminity.

I've shifted no goals, and I've not "blindly asserted" anything about STD rates, I provided a source for that:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6893897

Still clinging to that correlation > causation fallacy I see.
Restating it doesn't make it any less rational.
You've been educated on this.

trogs wrote:Statistically, MSM's have elevated STD rates compared to their peers. I've done some work for my near family members working in reproductive health, and I know that there is a lot of research easily verifiable on this - there's nothing malicious in the fact, it's just a fact, MSM's get it on. For that matter, East Asians have fewer STD's than my particular ethnic group, and women have fewer motorcycle accidents than my sex. It's just statistical facts, evolution doesn't mind how we feel about them. DNA is DNA, it doesn't judge.

Still a correlation = causation fallacy now being even further ripped out of context by blindly attributing it to DNA.
Again, by your logic being black and female has an inherent higher risk of STDs.
By your logic sexism and racism are evolutionary traits due this.

trogs wrote:
@Spearthrower: Thanks. I think you understand that there's nothing pernicious about it. Evolution just... is what it is.

You've failed to provide evidence for a causal link between homosexuality and risk of STDs.
You have failed to provide evidence for a causal link between MSM and risk of STDs.
You have most definitely failed to provide evidence for homophobia being an evolutionary trait.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Still clinging to that correlation > causation fallacy I see. You've failed to provide evidence for a causal link between homosexuality and risk of STDs. You have failed to provide evidence for a causal link between MSM and risk of STDs.

Nope. I don't know why MSM's have higher STD transmission. Just the data that they do.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
You have most definitely failed to provide evidence for homophobia being an evolutionary trait.

I've provided evidence that it's heritable. In population genetics, heritability data is all the evidence there is.

Conjecture on why a heritable trait persists in the gene pool - IE, has proven adaptive, by proof of having a high genetic frequency - is always conjecture. So, that's how I characterise it: conjecture.

Have a better hypothesis for why it's met reproductive success?

trogs wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Still clinging to that correlation > causation fallacy I see. You've failed to provide evidence for a causal link between homosexuality and risk of STDs. You have failed to provide evidence for a causal link between MSM and risk of STDs.

Nope. I don't know why MSM's have higher STD transmission. Just the data that they do.

From which you drew the fallacious conclusion that homophobia must be an evolutionary trait.
But, once again.
Correlation=/= causation and MSM =/= homosexuality.

trogs wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
You have most definitely failed to provide evidence for homophobia being an evolutionary trait.

I've provided evidence that it's heritable. In population genetics, heritability data is all the evidence there is.

Correction, you cited 1 article that suggest it might be partially inheritable.
It also suggest a far greater influence from unique environmental factors (46%).
The article has not managed to identify this 'homophobic gene'.
In fact it hasn't even established that it is homophobia specifically and not some more general phobia for people who are different for example.

trogs wrote:Conjecture on why a heritable trait persists in the gene pool - IE, has proven adaptive, by proof of having a high genetic frequency - is always conjecture. So, that's how I characterise it. You're welcome to posit your own hypotheses?

I just gave one suggestion on the question on whether it's even a homophobia gene, if said gene exists.
Spearthrower also mentioned this.

trogs wrote:
Nope. I don't know why MSM's have higher STD transmission. Just the data that they do.

Well from what I've seen, the data shows that MSMs have a higher incidence of STDs, as opposed to transmission. I'm not aware, from the data, that anal sex is a more effective vector for the transmission of STDs than regular sex is.

However, as I've already said, a lack of use of protection + promscuity within certain homosexual groups, is linked with an increased incidence of STDs.

If you're a homosexual male in a monogomous relationship, the chance of you catching an STD is pretty much the same as that of a hetrosexual man in a monogomous relationship.

Sendraks wrote:

trogs wrote:
Nope. I don't know why MSM's have higher STD transmission. Just the data that they do.

Well from what I've seen, the data shows that MSMs have a higher incidence of STDs, as opposed to transmission. I'm not aware, from the data, that anal sex is a more effective vector for the transmission of STDs than regular sex is.

However, as I've already said, a lack of use of protection + promscuity within certain homosexual groups, is linked with an increased incidence of STDs.

If you're a homosexual male in a monogomous relationship, the chance of you catching an STD is pretty much the same as that of a hetrosexual man in a monogomous relationship.

Exactly.

Sendraks wrote:If you're a homosexual male in a monogomous relationship, the chance of you catching an STD is pretty much the same as that of a hetrosexual man in a monogomous relationship.

And whether you're gay or straight and autoerotic, the only risk you're at is wrist-strain.

trogs wrote:

scott1328 wrote:

trogs wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:
Can I just get this out of the way once and for all?

Trogs, do you possess any negative stereotypes that other people might justly conceive of as prejudice against homosexuals?

Nope. I think there's good data that gays tend to be atheists and promiscuous. In other words, my type of people. ^_^

I think it's silly to deny that they're easily victimizable, though. You may think of that as a negative stereotype, if you like... I don't, any more than it is in women or kids. Gays just get targeted, beat up, and killed by psychos a lot. Sad fact of life.

And based on your previous statement on why this is so,this is due to the fact that they are weak and effeminate.

On average, slightly more so than their heterosexual peers, yeah. Plus, socially marginalised.

I guess, then, you inherited this gene that is the subject of the OP.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:I just gave one suggestion on the question on whether it's even a homophobia gene, if said gene exists.
Spearthrower also mentioned this.

Spear-thrower's suggestion is one of the best posts in the thread so far - basically, that homophobia is some kind of pleitropic, which it almost certainly is. The explanation of pleiotropy is of course the tactic usually deployed on homosexuality itself, for example in the "sexy sister" hypothesis I linked to before. OTOH, it doesn't address the fact that having a proclivity for hurting and killing gay/vulnerable men in itself ought to have some kind of effect on selection, it's hard to argue that the phenotype is neutral.

As for "whether it's even a homophobia gene", nature just doesn't care how we label which gene is "for" what. The name and illusion of purpose is just in our heads - only the heritability is real. You just have loci X1, X2, X3,... X99 (gene), which does or does not result in phenotype Y1, Y2, Y3,... Y99 (heritability), which does or does not result in babies (selection) over time. If humans pop up with our clever-silly minds and say that gene X2 is "really" "for" fashionable phenotype Y13, the DNA is unaffected by these word-of-the-day games.

scott1328 wrote:I guess, then, you inherited this gene that is the subject of the OP.

You're trying to insult me by saying that I inherited a gay gene? Dude. Grow up, end the fail.

trogs wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:I just gave one suggestion on the question on whether it's even a homophobia gene, if said gene exists.
Spearthrower also mentioned this.

Spear-thrower's suggestion is one of the best posts in the thread so far - basically, that homophobia is some kind of pleitropic, which it almost certainly is. The explanation of pleiotropy is of course the tactic usually deployed on homosexuality itself, for example in the "sexy sister" hypothesis I linked to before. OTOH, it doesn't address the fact that having a proclivity for hurting and killing gay men in itself ought to have some kind of effect on selection.

As for "whether it's even a homophobia gene", nature just doesn't care how we label which gene is "for" what. You just have loci X1, X2, X3,... X99 (gene), which does or does not result in phenotype Y1, Y2, Y3,... Y99 (heritability), which does or does not result in babies (selection) over time.

If humans pop up with clever-silly minds and say that X2 is "really" "for" word-of-the-day Y13, the DNA is unaffected by these fashions.

And the problem again comes down to the way in which humans think, requiring discrete entities to be labelled and linked intrinsically to an effect. Of course, the problem is that any given gene is not operating individually, but as part of a package. Even if we could identify a gene frequently present in homosexuals or homophobes, it wouldn't infer that gene alone was responsible, because that gene necessarily interacts with other genes in expression, and the other genes also partake in creating the environment in which expression happens.

trogs wrote:What's interesting is that homophobia is almost certainly significantly more genetic than male homosexuality:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2292426/

Which actually makes excellent evolutionary sense.

Thinking a bit deeper about this, it seems females should be just as homophobic OR MORE than men are if it were to make evolutionary sense!

A female having sex with a bisexual or homosexual male would be more likely to get diseases than a female restricting her selection to heterosexual men, a female having sex with a bisexual or a homosexual man might be less likely to pass on her genes beyond one generation - both being fairly deleterious problems.

Or maybe evolution has found that females are having sex enough left and right anyway so a slight bit more risk of STDs doesn't matter?

trogs wrote:

scott1328 wrote:I guess, then, you inherited this gene that is the subject of the OP.

You're trying to insult me by saying that I inherited a gay gene? Dude. Grow up, end the fail.

It is interesting that you took it as an insult. Maybe you inherited the homophobia gene?

Zwaarddijk wrote:

trogs wrote:What's interesting is that homophobia is almost certainly significantly more genetic than male homosexuality:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2292426/

Which actually makes excellent evolutionary sense.

Thinking a bit deeper about this, it seems females should be just as homophobic OR MORE than men are if it were to make evolutionary sense!

A female having sex with a bisexual or homosexual male would be more likely to get diseases than a female restricting her selection to heterosexual men, a female having sex with a bisexual or a homosexual man might be less likely to pass on her genes beyond one generation - both being fairly deleterious problems.

Or maybe evolution has found that females are having sex enough left and right anyway so a slight bit more risk of STDs doesn't matter?

Yeah, I think it's fairly uncontroversial that the average lady-human tends to be unimpressed by gay-seeming men. So, your theory aligns to anecdote.

But, this might just be a part of women's generally reduced attraction to males perceived as victimised and wussy. Effeminate guys who might be mistaken for gay in the wrong setting, but are unmistakably powerful and unvictimised (Captain Sparrow, Legolas, Mr. sparkle-vampire) are famous for cresting on waves of ladyboners.