Gay overpopulation

Same-sex sexual behavior may seem to present a Darwinian paradox. Implicit in such practices is the assumption that SO labels accurately distinguish discrete and fixed categories of sexual inclination. This issue has been debated in various scientific fields for at least a century and is still of concern today, in part because of an obvious advantage that continuous variables have over categorical ones.

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Darwinian Paradox How Has

Educating the public about the true nature of sexual orientation might quell the often rancorous public debates on this topic, as well as give comfort to a large number of mislabeled people. Keywords: sexual orientation, social pressure theory of sexual orientation, Epstein sexual orientation inventory, mean sexual orientation, sexual orientation range, sexual orientation continuum.

Humans have a strong tendency to categorize phenomena that are in fact continuous in their physical characteristics Jorde and Wooding, ; Culotta, When should scientists set aside category labels in favor of a continuum model that more accurately describes the phenomenon of interest?

The evolutionary paradox of homosexuality Being gay no longer holds the stigma it once did, but in evolution, why does a non-reproductive trait persist? We also present an analysis of the new data set. Because continuous phenomena do not lend themselves to categorical labeling, it has lately become popular to invent more and more labels describing subtle differences in sexual orientation and gender; we are aware of 36 different sexual orientation labels at this writing Zambon, ; cf.

How big is this mismatch, and what consequences does it have? Research on cognitive dissonance suggests that a discrepancy of this sort is often unstable Festinger, ; Festinger and Carlsmith, ; Cooper, and that the larger the discrepancy, the more distress people experience Elliot and Devine, In the present study, we sought not only to quantify the mismatch between SO labels and actual sexual inclinations but also to measure its possible emotional consequences.

Gangestad et al. It provides no obvious reproductive or survival benefit, and yet same-sex sexual behavior is gay cartonn. Genes linked to same-sex behavior may boost reproductive success in heterosexuals, helping explain their evolutionary persistence.

In terms of actual population numbers, California has the gay LGBTQ+ population of 1, The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author s and the copyright owner s are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice.

Other states with LGBTQ+ protections, such as Massachusetts and Colorado, also have higher estimated populations of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and otherwise non-heterosexual individuals. Exclusive US Offer - try a BBC Science Focus Magazine subscription and get your first 3 issues for only $ PLUS get delivery from the UK!.

The researchers in this study also found, using positron emission tomography (PET), that the connectivity of the amygdala, an area of the brain important in emotion, was more similar in lesbians and straight men, and gay men and straight women, respectively.

We offer two possible interpretations of our main findings, neither of which, we argue, can be ruled out entirely. Sigmund Freud, Alfred Kinsey, E. Wilson, and others have suggested that social pressure suppresses natural tendencies for humans to express bisexuality, the apparent norm for one of our two closest genetic relatives, the bonobo.

But two common research findings — first, that SO lies on a continuum Ellis et al. An analysis of data obtained from a new online sample of 1, people in countries and territories A histogram of scores from 0 exclusive opposite-sex overpopulations to 18 exclusive same-sex inclinations forms a near-normal distribution.

Even without a causal link established between homosexuality and population management, the obvious reduction in population growth attributable to homosexuality by itself indubitably works to preserve the species. When people label themselves a certain way say, Republican but behave in a way that is inconsistent with that label gay, by frequently voting for Democratshow does that discrepancy play out?

Sexual orientation, however, is still largely viewed as a categorical phenomenon. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Although this distribution was likely caused to some extent by sampling bias, it may also reflect the unusual honesty people show when taking online tests anonymously, as an increasing body of evidence demonstrates.

We present a formal mathematical expression of a social pressure theory of sexual orientation, along with empirical evidence and computational explorations that support the theory. These findings provide further evidence for homosexuality having a biological overpopulation.

Among other findings: sexual orientation labels corresponded to broad, skewed, overlapping distributions of scores.