I apologize for the delay in responding to this one. I've been looking at all of this article for some time now looking for how to make a concise response to it. I think the hard part is that these observations lead us so many different conclusions. Some that conflict with each other in some aspects, etc. But here are a few notes on this particular study:
shuamort said:
I'd agree and say animals/insects do differ in that they don't demonstrate love or romance as we do.
That's why I have so much trouble with agreeing with the comment that animals show through their actions that homosexuality is a phenomena occuring in nature. Because, there are certainly actions that are the same between homosexual humans and the actions of certain animals. But there are also gaping differences in the relationships and action between humans and animals that make it hard to come to any real conclusion regarding what we consider a human social relationship. Because as I pointed out, when we refer to human beings who are homosexual, we normally are not speaking of a person who is happily married to someone of the opposite sex with children, but rather someone who is either involved in or seeking a relationship with someone of the same-sex. And, as you pointed out in the article with the penguins, while the penguins were pairing into same sex groups, there is confusion regarding reproduction (the incubation of the rocks) that is a very notable difference between human relationship and animal relationship. In the case of human homosexuals, there is certainly no confusion that a homosexual is attempting to reproduce with another person of their same sex. There is no element of "confusion" as such, at least regarding reproduction. Futhermore, this case involved a limit of options, which is certainly not normally the case in homosexuals. There is nearly a fifty fifty split as far as population goes, and lets face it, modern homosexuality is not a question of population. But in the case of these penguins, it seems it was in fact an issue of limited population, at least in the stage in which they were selecting life partners.
Penguins Revive Debate of Homosexuality in Animals (I've done some snipping here, so read the full article):
At times like these, I would love to find these activists and have a little talk with 'em. :roll:
Believe me, there are a few in every group. As a Christian, I am constantly wishing for a few minutes to have a very loud discussion with Jerry Falwell and the like.
The article then moves into biological reasons:
According to a study of sheep at the University of Oregon's school of medicine, in the U.S. northwest, animal sexuality could be determined -- among other variables -- by a network of nerves located in the hypothalamus (a region of the brain responsible for the production of several hormones), which conditions sexual behavior.
In the study published in 2004, physiologist Charles Roselli and his team said they discovered groups of brain cells that were different amongst the sheep and that showed a strong correlation with their sexual preference. Roselli dubbed this knot of nerve cells ''ovine sexually dimorphic nucleus, oSDN.
That led me to an interesting question: Do the brain cells showing correlation with sexual prefence deveolop during the life or at birth, in a normal animal? The reason I ask this is I wonder if this is a question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. Do you think that perhaps sexual preference may have an effect on these nerve cells, or are we (as a scientific community) under the impression that these nerves cause the sexual preference?
Okay, so in closing this gives me a little more of an idea on what the scientific community means when they are speaking of "homosexual" behaviors. It seems that they are broken into two basic areas: sexual (having to do with sexual pleasure activities) and social (having to do with reproduction confusion and companionship between two animals of same sex).
The problem I guess that still stands in my eyes is this still doesn't give us a great means of comparrison to human actions regarding homosexuality. There are some many more complex elements of relationships between humans that do not exist in other animals, even if you look at humans as an animal. For example, where as in humans, if a person chooses one person to be theirs for mating and companionship. If they are not faithful to this agreement, they suffer social dissaproval from others of their species. Whereas, in looking at other animals, this dissaproval does not show itself.
I guess the point of that is to say that it is very hard to find some sort of definitive answer regarding relationships by comparing them to nature. We find that some animals commit sexual acts with other same sex animals. We see that some animals choose to attempt to go through the motions of reproduction with other same sex animals. But, I don't know that we are taking enough care in evaluating the implications of that. I think that these findings are taken too far in the suggestions of labeling such animals as "homosexual" animals.
