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It's commonly accepted in the world of evolutionary science that any feature that has evolved in a species, must serve, or must have served a purpose at some point in it's evolutionary journey.

I think that homosexuality may have helped the survival of early man in several ways.

1. Sex serves as a glue that held societies together. Sex had many emotional/ psychological implications for early man. When the world was a harsh place, unity within a group(especially a nomadic one) was vital to survival. It would not have been good if every member was unevenly bonded with one other member, for this reason I theorize that early man was not only polyamorous, but sexually indiscriminate. Many, if not all members engaged in sex with each other, be it one on one or all at once.

2. If all man did was be fruitful and multiply, he would eat all the fruit and be unable to multiply further. Nomads , and early man in general, did not have an unlimited food supply by any means. groups that had populations too large to sustain would die out. groups where exclusive (or situational) homosexuality were more prevalent would produce less mouths to feed.

3. BUT there was also the issue of high mortality rates among early man. And how does one curb high mortality rates other than multiplying like rabbits? simple. protect the young you do have. This is where the reproductively inert homosexuals came in. They provided more hands to care for young, especially the abandoned/ orphaned. They also typically seem to have especially nurturing parental instincts. As observed in gay penguin pairs who will attempt to care for rocks, orphaned eggs, or even eggs stolen from heterosexual pairs. They seem fully aware that they can not reproduce their own young.



Discuss these theories and any of your own you may have.

No, this is not a debate. It's a discussion. Be civil.

Keep Religion out of the thread, we're not debating the morality of homosexuality, but it's evolutionary advantages, if any.

I think this point is now rather irrelevant in modern society. It certainly may have been the case many thousands of years ago, but current sexual activity is much different from what you theorise sexual activity as being those thousands of years ago.

This will continue to be relevant until we regulate our population more closely. Until then, it's appropriate to assume homosexuals are doing humanity a service by not helping the overpopulation.

I'd suggest this is the most important point. We have an excess in population and in homeless children without parents or guardians. Gay couples can provide a home for one or more adopted children. I see no way of seeing this fact in a negative light.

I could provide one more plausible, yet merely speculative idea on homosexuality benefiting evolution, however you asked religion be kept out of the debate.

I realize that one has become irrelevant in modern society where monogamy is the norm and the same group closeness isn't necessarily required to survival. it's like a worn out oar perhaps. It helped us to get where we are, but an oar is no good once you've hit land. but yeah, like all unproven theories these are just speculation.

I'm interested in hearing your point and how you'd evoke both religion and evolution at the same time, but at the same time I'm wary of the backlash that might come from more religious members if you do so... but shoot away.
inb4WBC

I think it's a good thing and gay-haters are just being ignorant ass holes who should shut the fuck up and go back to the 1920's.

Advantages, are in the eye of the beholder in this type of discussion.

lol!!! thats funny.^

This is a theory right?

What happened to keeping religion out of this thread?

It's clearly a joke.

I highly disagree that early man was sexually indescriminate. I think you should watch this video if you are reffering to Neanderthals.
Neanderthal Predation Theory - this will make you think.

it's fine, as long as it's logical. if you can think of an evolutionary DISadvantage, you can post that here too.
he's right.
people can be really sensitive about that kind of thing though.
On what grounds do you doubt they were sexually indiscriminate?
the video won't load. :(

does it say that say that they were exclusively heterosexual? or was it something along the lines of them only taking women from other groups for reproductive purposes?

Either way, I wasn't referring to Neanderthals in particular, but now I'm interested in that video. :p