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

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

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Comment author: Epictetus 11 June 2015 03:00:19PM 0 points [-]

This brings to mind the notion of Heterozygote advantage for certain traits. For example, there is the sickle-cell trait. One allele makes you highly resistant to malaria. Two gives you sickle-cell anemia. In a population where malaria is a grave threat, the trait is worth it in the general population even if some poor saps get shafted with the recessive genes. For reference, Wiki quotes a rate of 2% of Nigerian newborns having sickle-cell anemia.

If there's some process where homosexuality is a fail mode, then as long as it confers a net overall advantage one would expect it to persist.