Ano
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"Happened" is typically used when a result is undetermined or not strongly expected: "the die happened to come up a six." It would sound weird to use it when a result is determined in advance: "the cup happened to fall once I let it go."
Not "undetermined", but the result of a process complex enough that it's very difficult to predict the outcome or identify the root cause.
Does who what? Do families disown gay sons? Yes; my first boyfriend was kicked out by his family, and it seems a disproportionately large fraction of homeless youth are LGBT, with some large fraction of those claiming their parents forced them out.
I should be more clear:... (read more)
No, it isn't.
Workers do not have the ability to choose whether to be a queen or not. That choice is made for them when they are raised. A larva cannot feed itself royal jelly. And it should be obvious that given the choice, a worker would always choose to be a queen. After all, you're related to the existing queen (she's usually your mother or your sister), but you're even more related to yourself, so anything that increases your own reproduction at her expense is a good thing. Conversely, workers, given the choice, will almost always raise other bees as workers, because they are always more related to the existing queen than to her offspring.
It seems to me that any mental feature that can be explained should be explained.
The explanation is the same as most other "repulsions", that you happened to develop a response of visceral disgust to a particular stimulus. Most people are repulsed by something; vegetarians can be repulsed by the concept of eating meat, men can be repulsed by reading excerpts from Twilight, and children can be repulsed by green vegetables. None of these need "explanations", beyond the obvious: because humans are malleable and can learn to hate things, particularly if they are taught to hate it. If people can learn to be repulsed by meat, or green vegetables, or squishy chick-lit, they... (read more)
Bees are obviously a very extreme example of this but I think they're an apt one. The important point is that fertility is not selected for in bees, but instead, the activity of raising infertile workers.
The incorrect assumption about homosexuality is that a person is homosexual because of their genes. It's more likely that homosexuality is caused by the genes of the parent. After all while an individual is only concerned with his own reproductive fitness to the exclusion of his siblings, the parent is equally concerned with the reproductive fitness of all their children. It's true that homosexuality cannot be selected for, but a propensity to have homosexual children CAN be selected for if it increases the reproductive fitness of older siblings.
The real conflict is between the mother and the laws of nature that say that she can't have hips the size of barn doors and still be able to walk.
From the perspective of the parents of the gay couple, it's a 0% fitness cost, though.
Specifically, there are gay men who are repulsed by the prospect of sex with women, and then gay men who are simply not interested (or not as interested) in sex with women.*
Is that really in need of an explanation, though? Some people are repulsed (by stuff), and others aren't. That is to say that whatever causes homosexuality probably doesn't also necessarily cause disgust for heterosexual activity.
But in societies where polygamy is the norm and men compete for women, it seems likely to me that any man who is less interested in winning is less likely to win, and the costs of sexual interest in men might grow significantly.
Homosexuality could serve in such... (read more)
Traditional behavior is so widely varied, though, that it's difficult to draw any conclusions. Some traditional societies practiced polyandry, others, polygamy, and still others, levirate marriage, and avunculism, and so forth. Some traditional societies were accepting of homosexuality and even transgenderism. You say that cultures that prohibit childbirth die out, but many diverse cultures have a thriving tradition of monasticism (which is even worse for reproductive fitness than homosexuality!)
... (read more)