I just read this on a couple of science blogs: Dan Delong, an English teacher, at Southwestern High School (Carlinville, IL) was suspended for assigning "The Gay Animal Kingdom ", an article from the a science and culture publication "Seed Magazine" by Jonah Lehrer. The article talks about the research of Joan Roughgarden, biology professor at Stanford, who has documented over 450 examples of homosexual societies in the Animal Kingdom. As PZ Meyers, of Pharyngula puts it:
Apparently the thought that homosexuality might occur naturally, rather than being a purely human sin, does not sit well with certain people. I thought the most objectionable part of the article was Roughgarden's blithe panadaptationism ("Given the pervasive presence of homosexuality throughout the animal kingdom, same-sex partnering must be an adaptive trait that's been carefully preserved by natural selection.")
It appears that the original article came out a few years ago, but I do recommend taking a look at it, especially, if you are like me, and have always been deeply bothered by the prevailing scientific theories that regard LGBT people as "flukes of nature", "abonormal" and "unnatural", or as the article notes homosexual behavior is considered by biologists to be maladaptive in the context of Darwinian sexual selection theory. And here's where feminist and queer theory intersect. Part of Darwin's theory of sexual selection states that reproduction is THE goal of sexual behavior that the "mechanics of sex [help] explain why the genders [are] so different. Because eggs are expensive and sperm are cheap" thus females have evolved to be coy, submissive, uninterested in sex while males have evolved to be aggressive, horny. (Yup, Darwin is the one who first popularized this idea of the female as "sexual gatekeeper") Roughgarden (thankfully) steps in to tear these widely accepted popular theories to shreads with undeniable evidence: females can (and do) have sex for pleasure. as well as members of the same sex can and DO have sex for pleasure...with over 450 examples of homosexual societies to back this fact up. Its evidence that apparently made the powers that be uncomfortable enough to suspend teachers for presenting it to their students.
Here's a teaser:
Roughgarden first began thinking Darwin may have been in error after she attended the 1997 gay pride parade in San Francisco, where she had gone to walk alongside a float in support of transgendered people. Although she had lived her first 52 years as a man, Roughgarden was about to become a woman...
After living for a year in Santa Barbara while undergoing the “physical aspects of the transition,” Roughgarden returned to Stanford in the spring of 1999 and decided to write a book about the biology of sexual diversity. In particular, she wanted to answer the question that had first surfaced in her mind back in 1997. “When I was at that gay pride parade,” Roughgarden remembers, “I was just stunned by the sheer magnitude of the LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender] population. Because I’m a biologist, I started asking myself some difficult questions. My discipline teaches that homosexuality is some sort of anomaly. But if the purpose of sexual contact is just reproduction, as Darwin believed, then why do all these gay people exist? A lot of biologists assume that they are somehow defective, that some developmental error or environmental influence has misdirected their sexual orientation. If so, gay and lesbian people are a mistake that should have been corrected a long time ago. But this hasn’t happened. That’s when I had my epiphany. When scientific theory says something’s wrong with so many people, perhaps the theory is wrong, not the people.”
-From "The Gay Animal Kingdom " Jun/Jul issue Seed Magazine
-Jonah Lehrer's blog The Frontal Cortex
-Roughgarden's lab at Stanford University: Lab Homepage
This teacher needs to get his job back!
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Homosexuality in the animal kingdom does not occur nearly as much as heterosexuality BUT it isn't some infrequent fluke either. How could this be news? Animals are not only known to be homosexual but some are KNOWN to actually rape other animals with forcible and extremely violent hetero and homosexual acts. Believe it or not Male Dolphins are some of the biggest perpetrators and they usually will rape in groups. A teacher's job is to teach or do they expect the students to learn of this stuff in a zoo without explaination or information?
That's cool and all, but what does it have to do with his English class? How does is relate into his ciriculum?
I think that'll give us more of an idea as to why he was suspended than just "omg it's about teh gayz!!!!111!1!" Without any solid way to know how it ties into what's being taught (remember: this is not biology or behavioral science) before we can point a homophobic finger at the school district.
I can think of plenty of ways this could be used in an English class- studying how to construct an argument, for example. But I definitely agree that we need to know the circumstances before we call this a homophobic incident, because there are plenty of ways to do a crappy and/or inappropriate job of incorporating articles into a class. The article itself sounds really interesting though.
The article sounds entirely fascinating and I intend on reading it when I get home (at work currently).
I think this incident is missing some links, though. Pam's House Blend had some information about this saying the word on the street is that it's for a class on debate and the article was a choice on the part of the students who read it. It's more information, but doesn't exactly explain enough for me to yet point a finger. This seems awfully dry and scientific and, if you're going to go that route, there's plenty of other dissenting materials you can use which buck existing thought (or what was thought of at the time). Why did we need to choose gay animals?
"Given the pervasive presence of homosexuality throughout the animal kingdom, same-sex partnering must be an adaptive trait that's been carefully preserved by natural selection."
Huh?
AKA Darwin was wrong about sex because if gays are "anomalous", then it wouldn't be as pervasive across species as it is.
There are many traits that are pervasive across species. They're not all beneficial (cancer) or laudable (rape, murder). This is a very weird way to argue in favor of homosexuality.
Cancer has to do with the way in which our actual genes change over time through cellular reproduction. Cancer happens because evolution can be charted. Cancer also isn't behavior.
Rape and murder are acts of power. However, science doesn't write-off rape and murder as behavioral flukes. Animals kill their rivals for power within the hierarchy; animals rape other animals to establish themselves in the hierarchy. It's from these angles that some of the anti-rape and anti-murder advocacy happens because it's considered fact.
It's breaking down the idea that sex is just for procreation and could have other behavioral benefits which would account for why homosexuality happens in so many species.
And how does one get from there to "same-sex partnering must be an adaptive trait that's been carefully preserved by natural selection."?
The biological science paradigm of "if it doesn't go away, it has to be preserved or hidden." Since this isn't a hidden trait, it has to have been preserved for some reason. This preservation happens in more than just homo sapien sapien, and so therefor it's got to have some strict scientific reasoning.
It's a biological was of saying gay people aren't just weird and actually serve some purpose to the greater species -- any species -- which needs to be examined. He's proposing his theory thusly, though as with all theories, it needs to be tested/studied.
Ok, so I rarely post, but as an evolutionary biologist, I really feel the need to weigh in on this one.
To look at something, anything, in the natural world and say "It exists, therefore it is adaptive" and then to go about inventing a story for WHY adaptive is WRONG. Few things could be said about evolution that are more incorrect ,short of denying it completely. To seriously discussion evolution, one must leave Adaptationism at the door.
First, a definition. An adaptation is a heritable trait (so a gene or an interaction of a complex of genes) that increases an individual's reproductive success. By this definition, homosexuality is not adaptive at an individual level, as a strictly homosexual animal would not participate in heterosexual mating and not pass on genetic material. Therefore, an exclusively homosexual animal has a fitness of zero.
Generally speaking, traits often persist through time despite not being adaptive. They can do this by 1) being recessive, meaning they can be masked by dominant genes and passed on by individuals who do not show the trait (like how blonde genes are masked by brunette genes unless and individual receives blonde genes from both parents). 2) They can covary with a gene undergoing strong positive selection. Many genes code for multiple things, and one of those traits may be preserved by natural selection because it is very adaptive while the other goes along for the ride. Even non-lethal maladaptive traits can be preserved this way. 3) Random genetic drift. This means that some traits become 'fixed' (permanent) in a population regardless of adaptiveness just due to random chance. This is especially true if mating is happening at random, which is surprisingly common. Within the evolutionary biology community, many, many scientists question how influential natural selection really is, and how much of what we see in nature today is due to traits being fixed at random. For example, a hurricane reaches an island of 100 turtles. 10 of those turtles are purple, 90 green. All 10 purple turtles just happen to die. Now all the future generations will be green - not because purple is maladaptive, but because survivorship (and then subsequent reproduction) can be random. This is called the 'Neutralist' (instead of Selectionist) perspective.
Now, if an exclusively homosexual animal has a fitness of zero, than homosexuality, evolutionary speaking is maladaptive. THIS DOES NOT LEGITIMIZE HOMOPHOBIA. First of all, many individuals animals in nature that exhibit homosexuality (mallards, penguins, bonobos) also exhibit heterosexuality. Thus their genes get passed on as a result of their heterosexual pairings, including any that possibly predispose them to them to homosexual activity (though, to my knowledge, there is movement away from the theory a direct genetic cause of homosexuality). Second, we should not use things that are hypothesized to be adaptive or maladaptive as a moral compass. This is VERY important. Mallards are species with one of the highest incidences of male-male sexual activity in the animal kingdom. Many male mallards have a female mate, with whom they sexually reproduce, and also have homosexual sex. Great, now we have an argument for homosexuality being natural and the right can shut up. But wait, male mallards are also incredibly ‘sexually violent’, as some behaviorists controversially phrase it, and will violently force themselves upon females within and outside their social pair. This increases their fitness, because it increases the proportion of genetic material in the next generation that’s theirs, but it doesn’t mean that rape in human populations is acceptable, natural, defensible, etc. I would caution anyone against taking moral direction from mallards, penguins, great apes, etc.
Another argument put forward for the adaptiveness of homosexuality is that it is beneficial for populations, especially amongst animals that form social groups, to have individuals unburdened by offspring that can still fully contribute to hunting, rearing other’s young, group defense, foraging etc. This is a very attractive defense of homosexuality as adaptive – groups with homosexual animals would be more successful, thus survive and reproduce more and having a percentage of homosexuals would thus become the norm. However, this is Group Selectionist, an evolutionary perspective that has fallen out of favor because many long term studies and complicated mathematical models have shown that selection largely acts on individuals (though there is some continuing controversy). Another argument for adaptiveness of homosexuality put forth by Group Selectionists is that more homosexual animals are born when population density is high as a mechanism of density-dependent population control. The problem with these suggestions is that even if the population is fixed for density dependent population control via increased homosexuality, a mutation for having heterosexual progeny regardless would take over after several generations because all the progeny would be reproducing. This is why group selectionism, in general, are evolutionarily unstable. In summary, group selection arguments are not ENTIRELY outside the realm of possibility, but are very, very unlikely and certainly no longer the evolutionary biology mainstream.
So where does that leave us? Nowhere. Yes, homosexuality is natural. Its adaptiveness is dubious at best, and anyone who argues otherwise is probably not an evolutionary biologist and is likely speaking with a less-than-ideal knowledge of evolutionary theory. The genesis of sexual orientation is rich, interesting field that should keep being researched. However, what we find, whatever it may be, will not give a set of ethical absolutes. We should combat homophobia because we believe in civil rights and human dignity, not because two German penguins adopted an egg (adorable as it may be).
I can provide more elaboration on any of the above topics upon request, but I think I’ve already said more than enough.
Far be it for me to argue with a biological and evolutionary expert. But I believe the article was talking about animal societies, not individual animals. I think there's a big difference between an individual example, i.e. a single homosexual animal, and an entire animal society where homosexual behavior evolved alongside other behaviors and is important to the function of the particular animal society as a whole. I also thought the article was interesting because of what it implies about female sexuality: Note the Christian extremist view about sex being just for reproductive purposes/Quiverfull movement/etc. (which also happens to be used as an argument against same sex marriage, as well as an argument for a patriarchal society that sees women as subservient to men)...so what is also said is that homosexual societies also show that sex is not simply for reproductive purposes, but also for pleasure.
This reminds me of a story I heard about 3 years ago. A musuem put on an exhibit about homosexuality in the animal kingdom. Anti-gay advocates said that they were showing porn. Which makes me think, if depictions of animal sex is porn, then aren't zoos live sex shows? I can't count the number of times I've seen animals mating at the zoo. Sometimes I'd see more than one species mating on the same day. Yet, this is a perfectly acceptable place to take children.