Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbatt!ihnp4!qantel!lll-lcc!pyramid!gould9!telesoft!keith
From: keith@telesoft.UUCP (Keith Shillington @prodigal)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: sexual orientation/identity & nature/genetics/etc
Message-ID: <347@telesoft.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Sep-86 16:46:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: telesoft.347
Posted: Thu Sep 18 16:46:23 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Sep-86 00:35:53 EDT
References: <989@druhi.UUCP>
Organization: TeleSoft, SanDiego CA
Lines: 41

<eat me, you low down line eater you....>

In <989@druhi.UUCP> Karen M. writes:
> Questions like "Why hasn't homosexuality bred itself out of the human
> race by now?" bother me.

Good.  I say that there is a great deal masked behind such a
question.  THAT bothers me.  I wouldn't mind a question like: "Being
as we have now proven beyond a doubt that homosexuality is a genetic
trait, why hasn't it been selected out?  What is the nature of this
trait that causes its persistence?"  To me, this is a somewhat more
scientific investigative question, given some condition, why does this
condition prevail.  (Calm down folks, I know that the original premise
is steer manure....)
 
> Has anyone considered that it is not necessary for 100% of humans to
> breed?  That it is adequate for the mechanisms of sexual orientation
> and identity to "only be 90% effective" for the human race to survive?

Gads!  Given the population situation it's a durned good thing that
humans are slowing down in breeding.  I had this flash the other day
of what the world would look like at "stability".  Imagine for a
moment, that the population stops growing, and we do whatever it takes
to manage this garden we are living in..... (sigh, it is possible, and
I get stuck in the notion of 'probable'....)

90%!  Given the historical nature of families to be in the 3-7
children domain, maybe only 50% of the population should be breeding!
> 
> Personally, I would like to believe that Nature prefers a little
> "random variation" in her universe.  :-)

You damn her with faint praise.  Just think how boring life would be if
snowflakes were all the same.  Nature is about infinite variety to an
extent not comprehensible by a mere human mind.

------------------------------------------------------
"... and me with a brain the size of a planet ..." Marvin
-- 
Keith Allan Shillington   telesoft!keith@UCSD.ARPA      619/457-2700x388.ATT
			  {ucbvax!sdcsvax,celerity,bang}!telesoft!keith.UUCP