DanArmak comments on When does heritable low fitness need to be explained? - Less Wrong

15 Post author: DanArmak 10 June 2015 12:05AM

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Comment author: DanArmak 10 June 2015 01:57:16PM 0 points [-]

Yes, exactly this: I would like very much to know if a quantitative model predicts homosexuality should not persist at current rates without positive selection.

Comment author: VoiceOfRa 11 June 2015 05:52:23AM 1 point [-]

Alternatively it could mean something in the environment has recently changed that causes some genotypes that wouldn't previously manifest phenotype P to do so.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 12 June 2015 07:50:16AM 1 point [-]

For instance, the gene could cause homosexuality iff you eat soy products.

Comment author: VoiceOfRa 13 June 2015 01:05:57AM 0 points [-]

Or being exposed a some virus as westhunter hypothesizes. Or being exposed to pro-homosexual memes as the conservatives suspect.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 13 June 2015 04:27:01PM 1 point [-]

A virus which we would not have been exposed to in our evolutionary environment? If this hypothetical virus was confined to a specific geographical location before being transmitted during the age of sail, then there could be a population with ancestory from that location who would have evolved natural immunity. Do you know of any such population? If so, it could be a way to prove the theory.

Comment author: DanArmak 13 June 2015 06:41:24PM *  1 point [-]

That's would certainly prove the theory, as well as helping pinpoint the virus. But many viruses appeared in historical times, either making the jump from other species or evolving. The rate at which new viruses evolve is greater than before due to the very large and connected human populations they evolve in.