SEXUAL ISSUES IN CLINICAL PRACTICE FORUM ARCHIVE
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Re: Opposition to Natural Selection?
Edward Brown · 6/22/99 at 3:27 pm ET
I would not argue, because I do not disagree, with your arguments concerning natural selection and adaptive behavior. Behavior, can over long periods, lead to genetic change because of it's adaptiveness (and this may be true of non-reproductive sexual behavior); and, genetic mutation can lead to behavioral change if there is an adaptive advantage to the mutation. However, I do assert strongly that your argument is flawed in the "choice" of examples. Both celebacy and war are human choices, not adaptive behaviors in an evolutionary sense and are unique to the only species with self-aware free will. The same can be said of homosexuality, or any sexual addiction. These are choices made on the basis of emotional feelings, stemming from both physical and psychological gratification, something unique only to a self-aware species. Just as an aside, it is very unlikely that the environmental change you speak of over the next 50 years could cause or be mitigated by any small population change in sexual preference, whether it resulted in progeny or not. And, the basic proportion of the human population living non-reproductive sexual lifestyles has remained relatively constant for the last 4,000 to 5,000 years as far as we can tell.
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