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Originally Posted by Gilda
Genes don't "want" anything. They aren't "interested" in anything. As you say, they're not "aware" of anything. Ants didn't get an "idea" of a queen. All of that is ascribing human motives to animals incapable of them.
Homosexual behaviors don't function to produce offspring. This does not make them wrong, it means that they do not have that function. What is the evolutionary function of homosexuality? Hell, I have no idea, but that doesn't mean that there isn't one.
A great many natural behaviors don't function for reproduction or survival, but that does not make them "wrong". Honeybees will sting animals percieved as threats, in the process killing themselves. This is a behavior that does not promote survival or reproduction but does aide in propagation of the species
There is no thinking of any kind by genes, they aren't interested in anything. They carry information. If the information they carry produces in the organism of which they are a part a behavior or characteristic that promotes survival and reproduction, they're more likely to be passed on and thus increase in prevalence in the species. If they don't, they're less likely to do so. There's no motivation of any kind.
Right and wrong don't come into it.
Sure. The same is true of all concepts, they exist due to the ability of the human mind to conceptualize and categorize qualities and characteristics and behaviors. The fact of homosexuality, however, that some animals mate with others of the same sex, exists independant of whether we can conceptualize it, whether we understand its origin or function. Not promoting reproduction does not equate to "wrong."
Gilda
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I do conceed the point that the genes have interest and ants had an idea is a misdirection, but it is hard to describe something like a gene without elements of personification. And about conceptualisation, that was a bit of a fumble. My apologies.
Lets strip this down to a basic level. Day one, primordial goo, a nucleic acid is floating around one day, when some other components come bumbling along and fix to it, forming another nucleic acid, with a slightly different configuration. Then they split apart, and go bumbling off elsewhere. They both impact with more components, forming copies of their previous attachment. Thus we have a peice of DNA replication.
As time goes on, strings of nucleic acids pool together, forming complex molecules, which occasionally split apart, float off and grab other nucleic acids to make more copies. That principle remains the same throughout history. Your DNA wants to make copies of itself, but because it simply can't just go making a big ball of gloop anymore, it happened across a way of making things for it to live in and replicate. Those things become more and more complex, to compete with other DNA strands that want to do the same thing. One has to reproduce to compete, simply because if you don't, someone else will, and beat you to food/home e.t.c
The proverbial arms race if you will. The base of ALL life is to make your DNA continue so that it can out manouvre another peice of DNA. Nothing more, nothing less. From that point of view, homosexuality is wrong, in it does not conform to this viewpoint. Your correct there is no motivation, there is just the extinction of that particular set of DNA when something goes wrong. I doubt there is an evolutionary imperative for homosexuality, but science may yet say definitivly one way or another in the future.
Now, DNA is interesting (i know, i keep using that word, but i can't think of a synonym thats any good) because it is not too picky about what parts of it survive, as long as some of it does. When one looks at bees, the entire hive is descended from one queen, so everyone has her genes. Workers have only half a set of genes, they cannot have offspring, but still function normally. Their genes best bet of genetic survival is to increase the chances of survival of the one thing that can pass on the genes, the queen. Thats where the hive mentality comes from, genetic continuation by proxy.
Humans are unique in our higher levels of consiousness allowing us to master our enviroment. The brains that our genes have built to keep them going are very basic machines, easily thwarted by even simple problems, and highly suseptable to crashing and generally going a little by cockeye. Can it really be said that all homosexuality comes from abnormal changes within the brain, or from conditioned responses based upon life experiences. Like i said before, and you've pointed out, your genes don't know what is going on either way, they just tell your brain to respond to stimuli in a certain way, which can be obtained by either sex. When they go kaput however when you die, then will we see the gradual extinction of homosexuality, or its flourishment as a social phenomenon?
I can't particularly speak of other species, not being a geneticist by trade, but the same as above applies input is input, there is just a reason behind one being more prevelant over another.
Edit: in response to the above post, maybe i should rephrase wrong as incorrect or abnormal, for clarities sake?