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From: rozin@speedy.cs.pitt.edu (Roman Rozin)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.med,sci.psychology
Subject: Re: The persistance of homosexuality in a gene pool
Message-ID: <8250@pitt.UUCP>
Date: 30 Jul 90 21:02:17 GMT
References: <1990Jul23.022511.28161@mtcchi.uucp> <11095@netcom.UUCP> <32214@cup.portal.com> <1619@oravax.UUCP>
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In article <1619@oravax.UUCP> daryl@oravax.UUCP (Steven Daryl McCullough) writes:
>In article <32214@cup.portal.com>, geoffp@cup.portal.com (Geoffrey Scott Puterbaugh) writes:

  [ studies implying genetic basis for homosexuality ]

>                                            However, I don't think
>that sexual preference is understood well enough for anyone to say
>that we *know* that it has a genetic cause. Until a mechanism is
>identified, the studies such as the ones you can only be taken as
>only data, not as any kind of proof.

It is not necessary to know the particular mechanism, to know that there
is *some* mechanism at work there.  There are cases of homosexual behavior
in lower animals too.  For examle, lesbian gulls, described in
R.L. Trivers's _Social Evolution_.

Roman Rozin