Thursday, June 18, 2009

Selection for Same Sex Relationships?

Researchers have found that throughout the animal kingdom, there is same-sex bonding behavior:
Nathan Bailey and Marlene Zuk, biologists at the University of California, Riverside, found that same-sex relationships were a universal phenomenon in the animal kingdom, seen in everything from worms to frogs to birds. "It's clear that same-sex sexual behavior extends far beyond the well-known examples that dominate both the scientific and popular literature: for example bonobos, dolphins, penguins and fruit flies," said Bailey.
It is not clear what selective pressure this would bring to bear since the way t hings are set up is decidedly not for same-sex behavior. It is possible that, as Jeff Goldblum's character in Jurassic Park said "life finds a way":
"Same-sex sexual behaviors are flexibly deployed in a variety of circumstances, for example as alternative reproductive tactics, as cooperative breeding strategies, as facilitators of social bonding or as mediators of intrasexual conflict. Once this flexibility is established, it becomes in and of itself a selective force that can drive selection on other aspects of physiology, life history, social behaviour and even morphology," said Bailey.
So it may be that these are dominance acts or alloparenting acts as well. What is not elucidated in the study is whether there are instances of homosexuality in which the couples simply never mate with an animal of the opposite sex at any point. Scripture clearly prohibits this sort of behavior among humans as being sinful. One wonders what God thinks about it in the lower animal kingdom? Curiouser and curiouser.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous1:21 PM

    AMW

    [The page is giving me trouble with the Name/URL, so I'm posting this "anonymously"]

    ...same-sex relationships were a universal phenomenon in the animal kingdom, seen in everything from worms to frogs to birds.

    Aren't worms hermaphroditic?

    What is not elucidated in the study is whether there are instances of homosexuality in which the couples simply never mate with an animal of the opposite sex at any point.

    That doesn't seem like it would be an interest from a theological/doctrinal perspective. The Biblical passages against homosexual acts aren't specific to life-bonding with an individual of the same gender.

    Anecdotally, I've heard of bonding among Penguins in which two males will go through all the rituals of courtship, right on down to carrying around a round stone as if it were an egg. But I haven't really checked the veracity of the story.

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