(March 4, 2016 at 4:30 pm)Alex K Wrote:(March 4, 2016 at 3:46 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: This neglects the extra baby making that would occur in a germ line that isn't host to the gay gene. For where you would have an Uncle Stan on the one line, the gay one, you would have a Reproductive Bob on the other line. I think that would more than offset any advantage gained through gay parenting.
The assumption that this is outweighed by the benefits was implicit in my 2. in which I meant the net effect, but you're right of course, I didn't say that clearly.
The proposition that homosexuals are significantly less likely to engage in reproductive sex may seem intuitive, but it seems to me that may not actually be true under many social conditions.
Also, I am not sure exactly what constitutes, and what other effects flow from the "homosexual gene". The effect of making the bearer inclined towards homosexuality may well require the combination of several genes. The individual component may well carry direct reproductive benefits for the bearer, even if combined into the "homosexual combination", the collection might hamper the bearer's chance to reproduce.
In that case, the reduced probability of those carrying the complete set of "homosexual gene" to reproduce may well be more than offset by the increased productive successes of those carrying components of the "homosexual gene", so that homosexuality survives in the population because while, reproductively speaking, the total gene may be less than the sum of its parts, the parts are individually damned advantageous, so the parts will survive and recombine to menifest as homosexuality at more or less constant rate even if full blown homosexuals might seem less able to pass on their genes.
