Gay marriage in Australia

[mojorising]

Why would you think that their having a choice would be something that evolved?

Because women demonstrate rational intelligence and powers of deduction comparable to men. If they had evolved as passive livestock like cattle this would not likely be the case. Hence it is likely women had a substantial role to play in the choice-making of pair-bonding.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Why would you think that their having a choice would be something that evolved?

Because women demonstrate rational intelligence and powers of deduction comparable to men.

If they had evolved as passive livestock like cattle this would not likely be the case. Hence it is likely women had a substantial role to play in the choice-making of pair-bonding.

Except for that niggling little detail of the fact that this is not what history shows us.

Seriously, mojo, science is not your friend in this argument.

It's not about how people got to be gay, or about whether or not the perfect family unit is a 50's TV couple where the mother bakes cookies and the dad has some unidentified job.
The 'history' of marriage is not as you portray it, nor is it sacrosanct.
People are not,as a rule, so offended by teh geys to justify discrimination.

There are gay people right now, and no science establishes that they pose a threat to the children they raise.
You have no other reason to base discrimination against them, but you're still flailing around, seeing if anything will stick.

We're not buying it. Because all you offer are assertions with nothing objective to back it up. And your 'rational reasoning' is rationalization, moving backwards from your homophobia to whatever evidence you think you can jimmy up.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Because women demonstrate rational intelligence and powers of deduction comparable to men. If they had evolved as passive livestock like cattle this would not likely be the case. Hence it is likely women had a substantial role to play in the choice-making of pair-bonding.

Even though it may well be true that women had that choice, that is not a good argument.
Consider, for example, gorillas. Do females have a substantial choice? It does not seem like that.
But male gorillas do not seem to have rational intelligence and powers of deduction greater than those of female gorillas (they may not have language like us, but gorillas have considerable deductive and inductive powers).
Similarly, females do not seem to have a substantial choice in mandrills or baboons, but females do not seem to be less intelligent.
And so on.

 

[mojorising]

Because women demonstrate rational intelligence and powers of deduction comparable to men. If they had evolved as passive livestock like cattle this would not likely be the case. Hence it is likely women had a substantial role to play in the choice-making of pair-bonding.

Even though it may well be true that women had that choice, that is not a good argument.
Consider, for example, gorillas. Do females have a substantial choice? It does not seem like that.
But male gorillas do not seem to have rational intelligence and powers of deduction greater than those of female gorillas (they may not have language like us, but gorillas have considerable deductive and inductive powers).
Similarly, females do not seem to have a substantial choice in mandrills or baboons, but females do not seem to be less intelligent.
And so on.

Interesting point Angra but there are 2 problems.

1. Gorillas do not have the evolved powers of rational abstract thought that humans do.
2. The body size difference between males and females indicates how possessive males will be of females.

e.g.
Bonobos male and female are the same size - sex is social
Humans male is 20% bigger than females - sex is pair bonding
Gorillas male is 40% bigger than females - sex is groups of females like a harem with the boss male

 

[Keith&Co.]

Since you mention size, i'm reminded of a passage in Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice To All Creation, Dr. Judson describes a certain species of crab. The males of the species come in two sizes.

One is gigantic compared to the females, one is about the size of a female. The giants keep a harem. They collect females in a little enclosure and take them out one at a time to mate with them.
The smaller male sneaks into the giant male's harem. He has sex with the harem females, ensuring his sperm carries the DNA that'll be the next generation.
Every so often, the giant male will select the tiny male in his harem for sex.
The tiny male is adapted to satisfy the giant male sexually. It maintains his cover, then he is returned to the harem and fucks his brains out with the females again.

So there, at least, is an evolutionary adaptation to homosexual sex that makes sense. To keep the bull of the harem satisfied.

Doesn't really help one way or another, but it does show that sex is not something nature evolved for always exclusively one and only one function.

And the more you know, the less you're willing to accept unrealistic bullshit presented as 'reason.'

 

[Keith&Co.]

Dr. Judson also mentions a few species that are entirely female. Every single member of the species.
Some of the lizards do have sex, but it only simulates the exchange of DNA. The offspring are parthenogenetic.

These species do contribute to the idea that sex is not a single-function thing, but only one trait out of millions that species have put to use in one way or anothers, in such a kaleidoscope of ways that your simplistic, unsupported view just looks downright silly.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Interesting point Angra but there are 2 problems.

1. Gorillas do not have the evolved powers of rational abstract thought that humans do.
2. The body size difference between males and females indicates how possessive males will be of females.

e.g.
Bonobos male and female are the same size - sex is social
Humans male is 20% bigger than females - sex is pair bonding
Gorillas male is 40% bigger than females - sex is groups of females like a harem with the boss male

Those aren't problems.

Regarding 1., gorillas do have significant capabilities for reasoning; they're capable of inventing and making basic tools, copying others as they use them, engaging in complex social interactions, and so on. Granted, they don't have the abstract reasoning powers that humans have, but that's not the issue. The issue is that the considerable reasoning powers that they did develop are at least as present in females as they are in males, despite the fact that females don't have that much of a choice on the matter. The same applies to baboons or mandrills, which are less intelligent than gorillas, but the point about the lack of a superior intelligence in males remains.
So, the point is that there seems to be no clear link between the development of greater intelligence in one of the sexes and the choices females may have.
Your point that humans have much greater evolved capabilities for abstract thought does not affect my objection.
From a different perspective, a question would be: why would you conclude that because the reasoning capabilities of women are no lesser than those of men, they had a significant choice of sexual partners?
After all, it seems that similar levels of intelligence between sexes seem to develop regardless of who the degree of choice.

Regarding 2, that's not a problem for my objection, since my objection was about your previous argument. A sexual dimorphism argument is a different matter. In that regard, humans would seem to be more like halfway the differences in we observe in monogamous and polygamous species (so, your point about the 20% is mistaken; if we go by differences in body size, humans are halfway between monogamous and polygamous. In bonobos, females are in charge due to social organization).

But I don't see any of this as particularly relevant to the matters under discussion (see my previous post here)

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Bonobos male and female are the same size - sex is social
Humans male is 20% bigger than females - sex is pair bonding
Gorillas male is 40% bigger than females - sex is groups of females like a harem with the boss male

After a little more digging:

http://www.primates.com/bonobos/bonobo-info.html

The average body mass for an adult male bonobo is around 39 kilograms, and for the female it is around 30 kilograms. There is sexual dimorphism in the canines where the males' are longer than the canines of the female.

http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/bonobo

They exhibit moderate sexual dimorphism with adult males weighing about 39 kg (86.0 lb) and, on average, measuring 730 to 830 mm (2.40 to 2.72 ft) tall while adult females weigh about 31 kg (68.3 lb)

There are some minor differences depending on the source, but the bonobo male is at least 30% heavier than the female.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Once more, mojo's reports of how things are run afoul of actual research that's out there.

Any surprised?

 

[Metaphor]

One is gigantic compared to the females, one is about the size of a female. The giants keep a harem. They collect females in a little enclosure and take them out one at a time to mate with them.
The smaller male sneaks into the giant male's harem. He has sex with the harem females, ensuring his sperm carries the DNA that'll be the next generation.
Every so often, the giant male will select the tiny male in his harem for sex.
The tiny male is adapted to satisfy the giant male sexually. It maintains his cover, then he is returned to the harem and fucks his brains out with the females again.

I'm not the only one with a boner right now right

 

[mojorising]

After a little more digging:

http://www.primates.com/bonobos/bonobo-info.html

The average body mass for an adult male bonobo is around 39 kilograms, and for the female it is around 30 kilograms. There is sexual dimorphism in the canines where the males' are longer than the canines of the female.

http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/bonobo

They exhibit moderate sexual dimorphism with adult males weighing about 39 kg (86.0 lb) and, on average, measuring 730 to 830 mm (2.40 to 2.72 ft) tall while adult females weigh about 31 kg (68.3 lb)

There are some minor differences depending on the source, but the bonobo male is at least 30% heavier than the female.

Well OK. I must have remembered that wrong.

I do remember reading an interesting theory about the relationship between size difference and sexual strategy but it must have used another animal for the same size example, not bonobos.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

After a little more digging:

http://www.primates.com/bonobos/bonobo-info.html

http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/bonobo

They exhibit moderate sexual dimorphism with adult males weighing about 39 kg (86.0 lb) and, on average, measuring 730 to 830 mm (2.40 to 2.72 ft) tall while adult females weigh about 31 kg (68.3 lb)

There are some minor differences depending on the source, but the bonobo male is at least 30% heavier than the female.

Well OK. I must have remembered that wrong.

I do remember reading an interesting theory about the relationship between size difference and sexual strategy but it must have used another animal for the same size example, not bonobos.

My limited understanding of the matter is that significant sexual dimorphism (with males much larger and with bigger canines) indicates strong competition between males, and that in turn indicates polygamy, with one male getting plenty of females by means of beating the competition. As far as I know, humans are about middling among primates when it comes to difference in size between sexes.
But you should read more on the matter if you're interested (but I don't think this is going to help either side on the same-sex marriage or adoptions debate).

 

[DrZoidberg]

By your logic, wrt adoptions, we should strictly give preference to people living a communal lifestyle. Whether the people are homosexual, or heterosexual, or both, shouldn't matter because, according to you, people can be expected to keep their sexuality to themselves, with the result that the kids will never even know who's doing whom.

I don't think this is a realistic picture of the tribal life of our ancestors. I think pair-bonding was still practised even during times of pre-history but I will have to research this a bit more.

It seems strange that it is such a fundamental part of our modern lives if pair-bonding was not practised before modern culture evolved.

If pair-bonding was not happening in prehistoric times and it was just the most sexually vigorous male individuals who took advantage of the females in the tribe then it seems strange that the sexual jealousy evolved as such a powerful emotion in men.

Men get very jealous over sexual access to their female since a rival could impregnate her and he could end up paying the cost of raising the child. Women get jealous over emotional infidelity where their meat-hunter might start to provide food to a rival female.

You´re projecting a rationalisation onto humans that has no basis in science. It´s unlikely that pre-historic man had any idea sex led to babies. We have no reason to believe they had any ability to make this deduction. If you read about medical theories (Galen) prevalent around the time of Christ it´s pretty clear that humans have a history of not realizing stuff about our biology which to any modern human would be incredibly obvious.

We get jealous because nature has programmed us with instincts in order for us to steer us in the right direction. But this is pure instinct. There is no thought process involved. You might have noticed how the way jealousy is expressed is seldom appropriate or suited for the situation. That is because it´s pure instinct.

I recommend this book. It is annoyingly written IMHO. But the science in it is correct. They make a compelling argument that it´s not until farming and we settled in isolated family unit farms that it was at all possible for us to deduce that sex led to babies and that children often looked awfully a lot like their parents and inherited traits. Before this they most likely thought that babies came from magic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_at_Dawn

Here´s another good one on sex and sexuality. It covers all species of animals and plants as well as humans. It explains all the basics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Queen:_Sex_and_the_Evolution_of_Human_Nature

 

[mojorising]

You´re projecting a rationalisation onto humans that has no basis in science. It´s unlikely that pre-historic man had any idea sex led to babies. We have no reason to believe they had any ability to make this deduction.

He would not need to make a rational deduction in order to evolve an instinctive sexual jealousy. It would evolve as a self-selecting trait without the experiencer understanding the rationale.

 

[Jokodo]

Even though it may well be true that women had that choice, that is not a good argument.
Consider, for example, gorillas. Do females have a substantial choice? It does not seem like that.
But male gorillas do not seem to have rational intelligence and powers of deduction greater than those of female gorillas (they may not have language like us, but gorillas have considerable deductive and inductive powers).
Similarly, females do not seem to have a substantial choice in mandrills or baboons, but females do not seem to be less intelligent.
And so on.

Interesting point Angra but there are 2 problems.

1. Gorillas do not have the evolved powers of rational abstract thought that humans do.
2. The body size difference between males and females indicates how possessive males will be of females.

e.g.
Bonobos male and female are the same size - sex is social
Humans male is 20% bigger than females - sex is pair bonding
Gorillas male is 40% bigger than females - sex is groups of females like a harem with the boss male

except that it's not true. Both bonobo males and human males are about 6-10% taller than the species' females, no more. http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/bonobo

 

[Jokodo]

By your logic, wrt adoptions, we should strictly give preference to people living a communal lifestyle. Whether the people are homosexual, or heterosexual, or both, shouldn't matter because, according to you, people can be expected to keep their sexuality to themselves, with the result that the kids will never even know who's doing whom.

I don't think this is a realistic picture of the tribal life of our ancestors. I think pair-bonding was still practised even during times of pre-history but I will have to research this a bit more.

It seems strange that it is such a fundamental part of our modern lives if pair-bonding was not practised before modern culture evolved.

If pair-bonding was not happening in prehistoric times and it was just the most sexually vigorous male individuals who took advantage of the females in the tribe then it seems strange that the sexual jealousy evolved as such a powerful emotion in men.

Men get very jealous over sexual access to their female since a rival could impregnate her and he could end up paying the cost of raising the child. Women get jealous over emotional infidelity where their meat-hunter might start to provide food to a rival female.

Pair-bonding doees not equate living a secluded life as a multi-headed hermit called a family unit. Pair-bonding is consistent with living together in multi-male multi-female households.

Sexual jealousy does not indicate pair-bonding.

Sexual jealousy is not universal. One of the largest genres in amateur porn is cuckold - basically "look how aroused those other men get from fucking my wife - that's how hot she is!"

 

[DrZoidberg]

You´re projecting a rationalisation onto humans that has no basis in science. It´s unlikely that pre-historic man had any idea sex led to babies. We have no reason to believe they had any ability to make this deduction.

He would not need to make a rational deduction in order to evolve an instinctive sexual jealousy. It would evolve as a self-selecting trait without the experiencer understanding the rationale.

That is not how evolution works. All that is necessary for the trait to be selected is that jealous people have more babies than non-jealous people. No rationalisation or understanding is necessary.

You´re describing Lamarckian evolutionary theory. A completely discredited theory by 1920. I suggest picking up a basic book on how evolution works. You clearly have holes in your scientific knowledge regarding evolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism

 

[mojorising]

He would not need to make a rational deduction in order to evolve an instinctive sexual jealousy. It would evolve as a self-selecting trait without the experiencer understanding the rationale.

That is not how evolution works. All that is necessary for the trait to be selected is that jealous people have more babies than non-jealous people. No rationalisation or understanding is necessary.

That is what I said. No rationale or understanding. The trait is selected through its own success. i.e. jealous males rear more of their own kids and less of their rivals without understanding why.

 

[Jarhyn]

That is not how evolution works. All that is necessary for the trait to be selected is that jealous people have more babies than non-jealous people. No rationalisation or understanding is necessary.

That is what I said. No rationale or understanding. The trait is selected through its own success. i.e. jealous males rear more of their own kids and less of their rivals without understanding why.

And again I point out, it is not about what genes you raise as long as they are at least functional enough to produce a PERSON who is capable of discernment, rational thought, knowledge beyond belief, and communication. The human no longer relies primarily on genes for passing survival information so the genes are themselves no longer important to propagate.

We came from apes, but we get to choose whether we act like it, and it is clearly detrimental to our survival if we do. Quit acting like and encouraging others to act like mere apes.*

(*Unless you have some kind of sexual fetish or something, to so with apes. I'd say if that's the case though, you should probably try to keep that on the down-low, and not force others - children especially - to participate in that.)

 

[Jarhyn]

He would not need to make a rational deduction in order to evolve an instinctive sexual jealousy. It would evolve as a self-selecting trait without the experiencer understanding the rationale.

That is not how evolution works. All that is necessary for the trait to be selected is that jealous people have more babies than non-jealous people. No rationalisation or understanding is necessary.

You´re describing Lamarckian evolutionary theory. A completely discredited theory by 1920. I suggest picking up a basic book on how evolution works. You clearly have holes in your scientific knowledge regarding evolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism

That said, Lamarck, while completely missing the mark on the majority of evolution, modeled his theory around how human adaptation functions. The problem with his theory is not that it is a bad evolutionary model game-theory wise, but rather animals simply lack the mechanisms to implement it. Humans have those mechanisms in their ability to learn, teach, and test ideas, and occasionally to come up with new ones. And the best part is that our mechanisms don't require biological relatedness to execute. A computer with sufficient means could as easily inherit our survival data from us.

For humans, it isn't the selfish gene, it is the selfish MEME.