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Comment by zeta0134 | Hacker News Reader

As someone who is homosexual, I'm... not entirely certain I disagree with that classification. From a purely biological standpoint, if I act on what my body would very much like me to continue doing, I will never reproduce. It's not a lethal condition, but it's an evolutionary dead end, so ... close enough? I haven't studied biology or medicine in great detail though, so I don't know the proper distinctions for something to be considered a disease.

Either way, I don't see the point in trying to be politically correct about what I call myself, or how other scientists try to classify me. My condition is an oddity, a trait is a trait, and classifying those traits is what biological sciences are all about. I think science is awesome, so more of that please. :)

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You're not an evolutionary dead end. Evolution takes place at the level of genes, not individuals. If you contribute to the survival and reproductive success of your family, then the genes you have in common with them will live on.

Think of the honey bee. Most of the individuals in the hive will never reproduce but they all contribute to the survival of the genes they share in common.

Humans in a family are not all identical like worker bees but the principle of gene conservation and propagation is the same.

It almost certainly is an evolutionary dead end. That is why it is equally almost certainly not determined genetically.

That logic doesn't add up, regardless of your, or anyone's, position.

There are many genes that are expressed naturally, or through mutation, that would remove from reproductive ability.

How about genetic disorders that kill the individual in their infancy thus guaranteeing they will not pass on the gene? Homosexuals are technically able to reproduce should they insist on it.

Kind of throws a spanner in you lack of logic... Do you think this inability to reach a valid conclusion based on a set of inputs is a choice or genetic?

I don't think it's a good comparison, because those genetic disorders are usually single gene mutations, and much rarer than homosexuality. In many cases we know the exact enzyme that's broken and how it causes the disease. In the case of homosexuality, there are genetic markers that are statistically associated with it, but no clear proof of genetic causation. The genetic aspect could be indirect, by changing susceptibility to environmental factors.

> it is equally almost certainly not determined genetically

The point of the now almost flagged comment I was replying to (quoted above to make it easier to follow) is that being unable to reproduce is proof that the condition is not genetic. Whether it's one gene or a collection, that they are rare or common, that we know the mechanism in detail or not, becomes irrelevant in this context.

The inability to reproduce "proves" only that you are unable to reproduce. There is no conclusion that one can draw from this regarding the cause: genetic mutation, accident, etc. Unless you (or the serial downvoters who most likely didn't bother to understand what I said) can prove the connection implied by the poster above, I see no argument to contradict my statement.

This is an important thing to keep in mind. Survival of a species and a family can be more than just whether or not you reproduce, it can depend on how each individual contributes to a group to ensure overall survival.

And another example of an eusocial species would be the naked mole rat. In the end I think it should be more than fair to say that we are past the point of needing to pass on our genes absolutely, particularly because we're already straining Earth's resources without further encouraging reproduction.

The correct response is that "disease" doesn't carve reality at the joints. The sort of people that would call homosexuality a disease are doing it so they can then conclude "therefore, it must be cured". They're taking a noncentral example of "disease" and wildly generalizing.

See also: "MLK was a criminal and therefore was bad/should be locked up", "Taxation is theft and therefore bad", etc etc

Very good point. I studied a lot of Philosophy in college, and the postmodernist movement drove me nuts, but Foucault had a very good point in his paper on mental illness, that mental illness is socially constructed. The way I'd formulate the definition of a disease is that it's an atypicality that has a significant negative impact. What's a negative impact though? That's a value judgment, and most everyone has a value system that agrees in cases like cancer, but not on homosexuality. It's even situationally dependent. There is evidence that soldiers that measure higher on measures of psychopathy are more effective in conventional combat because they do not hesitate to kill.

and: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-mad...

Too bad you won't reproduce. You seem like an intelligent specimen of the human race.

Mate, we're humans. If zeta wants offspring, zeta has myriad ways of producing zeta-derived offspring.

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