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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (71593)	8/5/2003 9:12:49 AM
From: epicure	Respond to of 82486

:Homosexual behavior is common but unexplained by Darwin. Over 300 vertebrates, including monkeys, flamingoes and male sheep, practice homosexual behavior. Homosexuality in some species appears to play a social role. For instance, bonobos (pygmy chimpanzees) will have sex with same-sex partners to calm tensions after a squabble, or to make sure that a large amount of food is shared. But for some species, humans included, homosexual behavior may have no adaptive value at all. "Looking for any single conceptual framework to explain homosexual behavior is an unattainable goal," says Vasey, one of the leading researchers on homosexual behavior. In female Japanese macaques, homosexual behavior appears to have evolved from female strategies to coerce reticent males to mate with them. Eager females will mount unwilling males and prompt them to mate with them -- a strategy that was easily expanded to mounting other females. Despite these evolutionary origins, however, homosexual behavior among Japanese macaques may have no adaptive value -- just as our tailbone evolved but is no longer useful. This finding is important because it suggests that sex may have functions other than procreation -- a healthy ecosystem sports diversity for diversity's sake. " stanford.edu .................................... We don't know enough yet to definitively state whether it is adaptive or not. I'd put money on it being adaptive though- at least at some points in our social or sexual evolution as humans. So a broad statement that it is "maladaptive" offends my logic and reason.