Hillwilliam
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quote:
ORIGINAL: xssve
quote:
ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam
quote:
ORIGINAL: xssve
That one sentence implied that homophobia has a biological basis, you're gonna have to either clarify or back that up, yes.
yaknow, xssve. I'll say that mayyyyyyybe homophobia has a biological basis. (Biologist by training here)
In way back times, groups that tolerated a lot of homosexuality had fewer offspring and tended to field fewer fighters for wars. These groups would die out. The same argument could be made for polygamy and breeding like rabbits. More fighters means more success in annexing your neighbor's property. Those who practiced polygamy would take in 'war widows' and make them errrrrrr productive again.
We have entered a different era of humanity. Modern medicine and international politics mean that people don't die like they used to and the old rules don't work. Unfortunately, our biological hardwiring is still with us.
Does that make sense?
That is possible, and I considered that - however, war, for the most part, is a social phenomena, and homosexuality has never been any obstacle to martial discipline, in fact some of the most warlike groups throughout history have been rumored to have been flexible in their choice of sleeping partners if not gay as hell: the Spartans, the Knights Templar, etc.
i.e., it's kind of a cliche that to be gay is to be feminine, but there is a whole tradition of andophilia here, physical culture, butch leathermen, etc., i.e., an outright worship of masculinity.
In order to make that argument, I think you have to subdivide it down to "men that act like women", and that might be problem for very small groups, but warfare among indigenous people is often more about putting on a good show rather than attrition, again that seems to be a more common feature of urban civilizations.
In groups that small, fighting to the death with other groups is a bad idea: they don't have the people to spare for that either, high casualty rates are going to reduce the fitness of both groups, and thus, will tend to be avoided.
Given that the emergence of city states can only be traced back less than 10K years, we're talking between 30K and 40K generations, which might be enough time for a mutation like that to occur, and spread, but not particularly far.
And, what kind of numbers are we talking about here? it's not even 1% of modern populations levels is it? That's a lot of effect for a very minor stressor that doesn't seem to have much of a downside other than making a few people cranky.
The numbers don't add up - it's more likely related to that "cruelty gene" we were talking about in the sadist thread, but there again, the choice of target is largely circumstantial, in this case, it's tantamount to displaced misogyny.
e.g., it works more or less just like racism, sexism or any other random discrimination - if Obama had run back in 1999, he'd have stood not a snowballs chance of making it to, let alone past the primaries - 18 years later, it's happy days are here again - that's not enough time for a genetic shift to have taken place. 
You call war a social phenomenon, I call it a biological phenomenon. Agressive primates (and we are the most agressive) tend to always be looking to expand troop or tribal territories in order to control more resources. Agressive groups displace and outcompete nonagressive ones who are then forced into marginal habitat. Once there, they have less success and frequently perish.
Once a group spreads into new territory, it must then occupy said territory or lose it to another group. The best way to do that is to breed (this, I feel is where 'go forth and multiply' came from in the book of Genesis). Groups that didn't breed successfully were simply replaced by those who did. 2+ Million years later, only the most successful and agressive ones are left. Those who showed behavior that did not help increase the group population would be marginalized under this model.
Now, we are fully occupying the planet and it is pretty much at carrying capacity. fortunately, our large brains can hopefully allow us to discard those old hardwired imperatives. They are still there but logic and self awareness can overpower them.
As an interesting note, some cultures including Native Americans would have this person as their shaman. They were seen to be midway between male and female and therefore also midway between the physical and spiritual worlds as well. This is a good example of the round peg fitting into a round hole.
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