Re: Which 8-Bit system is "the most" gay ???

[russotto@grace.speakeasy.net (Matthew Russotto)]

In article <1fzq7qc.dmkbbyec6tfcN%email@luddite.ca>,
Simon Williams <email@luddite.ca> wrote:
>Paul Schlyter <pausch@saaf.se> wrote:
> 
>> OTOH if being gay is purely in the genes, why are people gay at all?
>> I mean, since gay people don't get biological children for obvious
>> reasons, those genes ought to have become extinct long long ago.
>> True, today we can inseminate -- but that's a quite recent invention,
>> and the gay genes ought to have become extinct long before that.
>
>Not necessarily... by the same logic, genes that result in fatal birth
>defects should also be self-limiting, but there is ample evidence to the
>contrary. 

They are self-limiting.  But not self-eliminating.  Sometimes there's
a heterozygote advantage.  Sometimes the gene is a common mutation
(and is thus often created anew).  Sometimes it just happens to be
near a gene which confers a survival advantage.  There's probably
other mechanisms.

With a hypothetical "gay gene" or set of genes, I'd bet on
heterozygote advanatge.  Just enough, and you get a stylish
heterosexual guy who knows how to impress the ladies.  Too much, and
you get a guy who knows how to impress the ladies but has no use for
doing so... just another of the world's ironies.

nb: I'm only half serious.

-- 
Matthew T. Russotto                            mrussotto@speakeasy.net
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."  But extreme restriction of liberty in pursuit of 
a modicum of security is a very expensive vice.