Lesbian monkeys and Darwinism

[diana]

Here's today's tripe for you: Lesbian Monkeys Challenge Darwin's Theory (http://www.gay.com/news/article.html?2003/02/18/4)

A psychologist claims that a group of lesbian monkeys in Japan shows that Darwin's theories of evolution are incorrect. A psychologist? That explains it.
"The traditional evolutionary theory says you do things in order to reproduce," he said, "so why would you do all this non-reproductive sex? To me, that's a really compelling evolutionary puzzle.":rolleyes:

No, it says that those that live to reproduce are naturally "selected." Not the other way around.

d

[xorbie]

Yeah, basically people seem to think that evolution commands people to do certain things. It is a descriptive theory. It just says "if you refuse to reproduce, you will not pass on genes." It does NOT say "reproduce!"

Moreover, this argument against evolution (containing this commandment fallacy) would be like saying that if I disobey my parents commands, they don't exist.
:rolleyes:

[Shadowy Man]

I don't understand animal behavior.

Therefore God exists.

:rolleyes:

[Dr.GH]

Within all social groups there are reproductive stragies associated with a members social status. Non-reproductive sexual activity is one way of establishing, and maintaining social order. All kinds of sexual activity is therefore reproductive in the sense that it is contributing to the group's success. Plus, all us mokeys like orgasms.

If Paul Vasey is being properly representd, he does not know much about primates, or evoluton.

Some decades old research addressed this. Sarah Hrdy, and Eric Phibus (sp?) are names that come to mind. Eric was my lab partner back in the '70s, and he invented an inplant that measured orgasms in free ranging monkeys. Last I know he worked at the Navy's primate center on St. Germain Island. Old news. The sexual activity of bonobos has been famous for decades as well.

[diana]

Originally posted by Dr.GH
Within all social groups there are reproductive stragies associated with a members social status. Non-reproductive sexual activity is one way of establishing, and maintaining social order. All kinds of sexual activity is therefore reproductive in the sense that it is contributing to the group's success.

Including those shitloads of critters that are apparently not meant to reproduce, like worker bees.

d

[Dr.GH]

I had time to look up Eric via Google

Phoebus, E. (1982) Primate female orgasm. American Journal of Primatology 2:223-24.

This was the main paper from his dissertation.

[Wounded King]

So are these radical feminist lesbian monkeys or lipstick lesbian monkeys?

[Secular Pinoy]

Originally posted by xorbie
It does NOT say "reproduce!"Dawkins says otherwise.

[sodium]

Originally posted by Secular Pinoy
Dawkins says otherwise.

I think Dawkins is known for wanting to view evolution from the level of the gene. To make this simpler, I'll assume that monkey lesbianism is caused by a single gene. From this view, we conclude that either,

1) The gene is just maladaptive (in terms of reproduction, not a moral judgment!). Many genes exist, like the ones causing Tay Sachs or Muscular Dystrophy, that are not particularly good at reproducing themselves, but are somewhat common, due to bad luck.

2) The gene is good at reproducing itself, but for a non-obvious reason. Perhaps the gene results in these monkeys going childless, but that doesn't mean that it won't be reproduced in general. For example, in some environments, the gene for Sickle Cell Anemia is adaptive. In general, it is good at getting itself reproduced, through causing its carrier to survive malaria. It also kills people, but that doesn't mean it can't come out ahead overall.

Similarly, a hypothetical altruism gene could be adaptive, if one copy causes its carrier to behave in a way that encourages the survival of other carriers (and their copies), even at the expense of its own carrier.

BTW, is it possible that the author of the article misunderstood. It's a long way to go from "compelling evolutionary puzzle" to "Darwin's theories of evolution are incorrect".

Also, we accept that there can be lots of behaviour that does not directly result in reproduction. Why should sexual behaviour be given special scrutiny on this score. If female monkeys chose to groom each other instead of taking unattractive mates, I doubt the psychologist would find this so puzzling, but because their behaviour is sexual, he assumes that it really should be for reproduction.

I wonder whether the behaviour actually reduces the monkey's rate of reproduction.

[Secular Pinoy]

That assumes that Dawkins' view of genes is correct, a position effectively refuted by Massimo Pigliucci (http://fp.bio.utk.edu/wisdom/Essays/against_the_selfish_gene.htm).

[Wounded King]

I can't believe this guy asks "so why would you do all this non-reproductive sex?", has he just never had sex or something?

Since there still is a population of these monkeys there clearly isn't enough of a problem with exclusive lesbianism to stop the monkeys reproducing.

Its like saying the existence of people who hate kids proves Darwin was wrong.

[Santas little helper]

I did a google on Paul Vasey.Here's his webpage
(http://www.psych.uleth.ca/People/Vasey/Vasey.html)
The survey at the bottom about "Mate competition between
males and females" seems interesting.

There's also a link to
this page (http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc97/1_4_97/bob1.htm) where we find the following

"Mutual sexual attraction was the impetus for the formation and maintenance of homosexual consortships," he
contends. Sexual selection theory holds that animals pick partners that will increase their chances of passing on
their genes, but this doesn't apply to homosexual macaques.

"I'm not saying Darwin was wrong, but there's room for working on the theory so it can accommodate
observations of homosexual behavior," he asserts.

by him.So I guess he doesn't disagree with evolution.

[Doubting Didymus]

Originally posted by Secular Pinoy
That assumes that Dawkins' view of genes is correct, a position effectively refuted by Massimo Pigliucci (http://fp.bio.utk.edu/wisdom/Essays/against_the_selfish_gene.htm).

and reconfirmed by mark ridley, and attacked again by mayr, gould, eldridge, and so on.

There are very large camps of evolutionary biologists on both sides of this one, and there has been for decades. It's not so clear cut as massimo (or on the other side, say, laurent keller) makes out. I also think that both camps are talking past each other a lot of the time.

[Secular Pinoy]

Ah, but Dawkins position is really untenable. Most are now acknowledging a less extreme gene-centrism, and more multilevel and hierarchical (see George C. Williams). I will celebrate the day when the silly Selfish Gene concept and its logical conclusion, the Extended Phenotype, is finally thrown in the dustbins of history. Hurrah for Pluralism!

[Doubting Didymus]

Originally posted by Secular Pinoy
Ah, but Dawkins position is really untenable. Most are now acknowledging a less extreme gene-centrism, and more multilevel and hierarchical (see George C. Williams). I will celebrate the day when the silly Selfish Gene concept and its logical conclusion, the Extended Phenotype, is finally thrown in the dustbins of history. Hurrah for Pluralism!

That's not quite going to happen. The gene as defined in the special sense of replicator (thus removing massimo's 'attack from below' from the picture) is the unit of selection. Whether that invalidates multiple levels of selection is a separate question. Dawkinsonian gene centrism is incomplete, not in error.

[Secular Pinoy]

The error is that Dawkins implies that evolution is reducible to the struggle and interaction among genes/replicators. Read his book River out of Eden and the Extended Phenotype to see his extreme views on the matter. BTW, Dawkins is a gene/replicator reductionist, and tries to explain the hierarchies in evolution in terms of genes. If evolution does indeed work in more than one or two levels or hierarchies, that would pretty much show Dawkins wrong. It does not, BTW, invalidate less extreme forms of gene/replicator centrism, those that accept multilevel evolution.

[sodium]

Let's say you want to explain why an organism has a particular adaptation caused by its genes. Now, your explanation would be a story in which a genetic mutation becomes more common in a population. Or it might be a series of such stories. Your story would explain how the changes in the organism caused by the mutation resulted in a greater prevalence for that mutation. At least, that's what you do for an explanation based on gene selection.

Your explanation could also be based on individual selection. You can do this, because every story of individual selection corresponds to one of gene selection. If you say that the mutation allowed the individuals with the mutation to produce more offspring, then this implies that the gene is causing more replications of itself.

However, not every reasonable gene level explanation can be described from the individual level. An "altruistic" gene may cause an organism to sacrifice itself in favour of other carriers of the altruistic gene. From the gene level, this explanation makes sense, but it cannot be translated to the level of individual selection, as the gene does not cause the individual to have greater reproductive success.

You could also describe the explanation from the level of the group. But a group explanation only makes sense if there is an underlying explanation in terms of gene selection. An explanation which shows how the gene benefits a group, but does not explain how the gene would itself become more common, is not a valid explanation for why a gene is common.

So, although explanations can be formed from the level of the group or the individual, the group view allows us to create specious explanations, while the individual level omits some reasonable explanations. And this is why the gene level should be preferred for explaining the preponderance of a gene.

The Pigliucci paper doesn't really deal with the issue as I understand it, so either Pigliucci has misunderstood, or I have.

[Happy Wonderer]

I don't see how lesbian behavior is a problem at all for evolution. People forget how easy it is to get pregnant and that the female doesn't always have a choice in the matter.

Consider humans with a nine-month gestation period. Once a hetero female is impregnated, having hetero sex is of no particular reproductive advantage; more sex acts doesn't mean more babies.

However, during this nine months the lesbians are fertile. An aggressive male that chose lesbian females as mates is actually going to have a reproductive advantage over an aggressive male that choses only hetero females. The hetero-preference male is likely to have sex with unfertile females. The lesbian-preference male is more likely to have sex with a fertile female. In addition, the hetero-preference male is going to have to compete with male mate for access to a female. The lesbian-preference male is competing with females, and possibly even gets a chance to mate with more than one of them.

Of course, it is not just the male's genes that gets reproduced -- the lesbian female's genes are also.

hw

[pz]

Originally posted by sodium
So, although explanations can be formed from the level of the group or the individual, the group view allows us to create specious explanations, while the individual level omits some reasonable explanations. And this is why the gene level should be preferred for explaining the preponderance of a gene.
Well, yes, if you define it that way. Unfortunately, with rare exceptions, the frequencies of genes just aren't very interesting. We're mainly interested in the frequency of phenotypes (and, I should add, selection operates at the level of the phenotype, and so that's what it is interested in, too) -- and phenotypes usually don't map to genes very well.

The Pigliucci paper doesn't really deal with the issue as I understand it, so either Pigliucci has misunderstood, or I have. Yes, those sound like two likely alternatives alright.

[Godless Dave]

Originally posted by Wounded King
So are these radical feminist lesbian monkeys or lipstick lesbian monkeys?

Well, they're hairy, so I guess the former ;)

One possible selection advantage of lesbianism in monkeys: Female monkeys who prefer sexual activity with other female monkeys, but occasionally have sex (and are impregnated by) male monkeys would have fewer offspring, spaced farther apart, who might have a better chance of survival.

[Undercurrent]

Originally posted by Godless Dave
One possible selection advantage of lesbianism in monkeys: Female monkeys who prefer sexual activity with other female monkeys, but occasionally have sex (and are impregnated by) male monkeys would have fewer offspring, spaced farther apart, who might have a better chance of survival.

Another possibility is that, when there's nothing better to do, hot girl-on-girl action prevents them from getting bored without a risk getting injured.

If horney young human males got it on with each other instead of drag racing at 2am, it would probably increase their reproductive success, too.

[Valentine Pontifex]

Originally posted by Dr.GH
Within all social groups there are reproductive stragies associated with a members social status. Non-reproductive sexual activity is one way of establishing, and maintaining social order. All kinds of sexual activity is therefore reproductive in the sense that it is contributing to the group's success. Plus, all us mokeys like orgasms.

If Paul Vasey is being properly representd, he does not know much about primates, or evoluton.

[snip snip]



Heck, it is trite even if one does not know much about primates or evolution or about the social function of sex.

The degree of genetic determinism it shows it utterly breathtaking: to the degree that one would almost think this guy was cardboard and not a real person with a real opinion. Could this guy possibly think molecules of DNA could have absolute control over behavior? Apparently so.

What does he think of masturbation? Or of dogs (four-legged or otherwise) that try to hump anything that moves (or so it seems at times)? This sort of shows that this guy is not thinking outside of his little box. One could easily postulate the genes acting to make the organism what to have sex any which way they can. Obviously that would be oversimplified but it would need to be considered as an alternative hypothesis.

[sodium]

Originally posted by pz
Well, yes, if you define it that way. Unfortunately, with rare exceptions, the frequencies of genes just aren't very interesting. We're mainly interested in the frequency of phenotypes (and, I should add, selection operates at the level of the phenotype, and so that's what it is interested in, too) -- and phenotypes usually don't map to genes very well.


But when nature selects a phenotype, it is indirectly selecting a gene (or combination of genes). Just as when a university selects a particular academic record, it selects a student. No one thinks genes are directly selected.

How would you describe, for example, a theory about how giraffes got such long necks, from a purely phenotypic view? Would you say that there were random mutations in the phenotype? And that after the longer necked phenotypes were selected, they produced children of similar phenotypes, for mysterious reasons? I can't help but think your phenotype level description wouldn't really differ from my gene level description.

A phenotype is the product of both genotype and environment. So, I don't really see how you can discuss a genetic change by only discussing phenotypes, if that is what you are discussing.

[Doubting Didymus]

Originally posted by sodium
But when nature selects a phenotype, it is indirectly selecting a gene (or combination of genes). Just as when a university selects a particular academic record, it selects a student. No one thinks genes are directly selected.

How would you describe, for example, a theory about how giraffes got such long necks, from a purely phenotypic view? Would you say that there were random mutations in the phenotype? And that after the longer necked phenotypes were selected, they produced children of similar phenotypes, for mysterious reasons? I can't help but think your phenotype level description wouldn't really differ from my gene level description.


I agree with you here, but the gene level explanation is limited to the explaination of adaptations. There is an entirely separate debate over whether the focus on adaptations is too narrow. For example, when you're not seeking to explain how the giraffe got its neck, but something more broad like, say, evolutionary history, you can't explain it entirely or even largely in terms of adaptations, and thus the gene level explanation is not very useful.

The question in my mind is not about the accuracy of gene-centric selection, but about the wideness of its applicability.

[Wounded King]

I don't know DD. Genetic drift is another large factor in evolutionary history and while its obviously not related to adaptation its still genetic. Population genetics covers more than just selection but is obviously gene-centric.