metagross
Sphinx
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- Jan 6, 2021
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This is the only thing that makes evolutionary sense. It's way too common to be just mutational pressure. - We also don’t see syndromic versions, as we would then.
Identical twins are usually discordant (a good 75% of the time), and it's bad on reproductive fitness. There is no way it is adaptive: the helpful gay uncle, group selection, etc, these are in a range from impossible to bloody unlikely.
The most likely explanation for homosexuality is a pathogen. Many smart people (e.g.: Bill Hamilton, Alan Grafen, Mike Bailey, etc.) think it makes sense aswell.
One model – not the only model based on a pathogen, but a reasonable one – leans on some natural examples. For example narcolepsy. We know that narcolepsy happens when a particular kind of neuron, concentrated in a little region in the hypothalamus, somehow gets zapped. - 99% of narcolepsy cases happen in the 25% of the population that has a particular HLA type – which suggests that something, probably a virus, triggers an overenthusiastic immune response that zaps a neuron subpopulation that produce a particular neurotransmitter (called hypocretin or orexin) that regulates appetite and sleep patterns. And it doesn’t really do anything else, because narcoleptics aren’t stupid. Now, suppose there’s a neuron subpopulation that performs a key function in male sexual desire: Some pathogen wipes out that subpopulation, and boom, you now like dicks
Identical twins are usually discordant (a good 75% of the time), and it's bad on reproductive fitness. There is no way it is adaptive: the helpful gay uncle, group selection, etc, these are in a range from impossible to bloody unlikely.
The most likely explanation for homosexuality is a pathogen. Many smart people (e.g.: Bill Hamilton, Alan Grafen, Mike Bailey, etc.) think it makes sense aswell.
One model – not the only model based on a pathogen, but a reasonable one – leans on some natural examples. For example narcolepsy. We know that narcolepsy happens when a particular kind of neuron, concentrated in a little region in the hypothalamus, somehow gets zapped. - 99% of narcolepsy cases happen in the 25% of the population that has a particular HLA type – which suggests that something, probably a virus, triggers an overenthusiastic immune response that zaps a neuron subpopulation that produce a particular neurotransmitter (called hypocretin or orexin) that regulates appetite and sleep patterns. And it doesn’t really do anything else, because narcoleptics aren’t stupid. Now, suppose there’s a neuron subpopulation that performs a key function in male sexual desire: Some pathogen wipes out that subpopulation, and boom, you now like dicks
