"If homosexuality had prevailed, we would have either faced extinction as a species, or have had to force a number of people, against their natural inclinations, to contrive ways of copulating. Not only would this have been onerous, but uncertain as a means of gaining an adequate replacement level, or as a solid foundation for domestic life"
I see no difficulty in their copulating. Indeed, IF homosexuality had prevailed one suspects it would be even easier than it is now.
It is common knowledge that imagination may be led by prejudice in ways which may or may not be evident to the weaver. This makes "thought experiments" of the type you have entertained us with less than useful from an objective perspective.
In the first place your argument is conditional: IF human reproduction is the ONLY activity by which we will judge the relative merits of hetero and homo, THEN it can be imagined that hetero might result in more prolific reproduction. But setting up this "thought experiment" to isolate one measure of value from all others, one can only remark relative to that one value and this can inform little upon the larger question of over-all value.
The desirability of heterosexuality as an evolutionary singularity is not compelling as you have presented it. Even were it granted that passion and lust were more likely to a larger population than planned reproduction, this does not mean that SURVIVAL or the QUALITY of survival relates merely to population size, if at all. One rather suspects the converse. The virtual elimination of unplanned pregnancies, single mothers, abortions, unwanted families, and so forth would seem to represent an obvious evolutionary advantage.
Then there are all the other civilizing influences that might or might not stem from one or the other evolutionary path. We have no way of knowing. This "thought experiment" sets up an either/or dichotomy which is far too artificial, narrow, and necessarily without data as to be reliable--even for imagined utopias. One could hope that all family planning would serve a noble purpose and process a la Plato rather than the rather unfortunate misery of heterosexual reality, but even this is mere conjecture.
You and I would miss the pleasure and delight of copulating with females; but if our thought experiment be comprehensive we might instead be delighted in one another.
So the thought experiment suggests only that reproduction would proceed at a less reckless and more thoughtful pace. It does not speak to the likelihood or quality of SURVIVAL which only evolution knows how to gauge.
Nor is it likely that these orientations are competing in terms of survival but rather that they are working together to afford evolutionary advantage through diversity and complementarity. This assumption of an either/or competition was likewise an inappropriate aspect of the "thought experiment". |
