HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: rspear@sookit (Richard Spear)
Subject: Re: Homosexuality & Evolution
Organization: Image Analysis Systems Group, JPL
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 15:50:46 GMT

dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott) writes:
: 
: Does homosexuality have a useful significance within the theory of
: evolution?
: 
: Are there any good references that discuss this area?

take a look at "sociobiology" by edward o. wilson (a pseudonym)...
it has a chapter that discusses the evolutionary significance of
homosexuality.

--
richard
rspear@sookit.jpl.nasa.gov
all disclaimers apply
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,talk.origins
From: arkdr@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (Dave Rindos)
Subject: Re: Homosexuality & Evolution
Organization: University of Western Australia
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 06:37:47 GMT

dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott) writes:
>Does homosexuality have a useful significance within the theory of
>evolution?

For the GENETIC theory of evolution to be used in the "explanation" of
homosexulity (in and of itself, a poorly defined term!) we would FIRST
have to establish that it is biological rather than culturally defined. 

Since this is not the case -- that is, that sexual behaviour, like
most other variable human behaviours, is a CULTURAL act -- then no
point exists in even attempting to come up with scenarios based upon
traditional notions of genetic advantage and conjectures derived from it.

Dave,
having a very good idea of what constitutes gay,
a vague notion of what constitutes a homosexual act,
but no idea of what constitutes "homosexuality" in a rigorous sense.


Xref: sparky sci.anthropology:804 talk.origins:10529
From: dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,talk.origins
Subject: Homosexuality & Evolution
Date: 1 Sep 92 07:00:53 GMT
Organization: Electrical and Electronic Eng., University of Adelaide


Does homosexuality have a useful significance within the theory of
evolution?

Are there any good references that discuss this area?
Xref: sparky sci.anthropology:799 alt.mythology:1736 sci.lang:6848 sci.archaeology:2439 soc.history:7891 talk.politics.theory:3942
From: dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu (David Mark)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,alt.mythology,sci.lang,sci.archaeology,soc.history,talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Social "Nature"?
Date: 30 Aug 92 14:13:32 GMT
Organization: UB

In article <29AUG199208033857@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov> packer@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Packer) writes:
>In article <1992Aug28.052346.27858@cs.su.oz.au>, danny@cs.su.oz.au (Danny) writes...
>>sciences.  I'm very impressed and am wondering if there is an equivalent 
>>journal (or journals) for the social sciences?
>
>No general social sciences journal exists with scope equivalent
>to the natural science journals Nature in Britain or Science in
>the U.S. There was some discussion of this recently in
>sci.psychology. Nature and Science, having been around a century
>or so, are themselves anachronisms -- but what enjoyable
>anachronisms! 

I am a AAAS member and get SCIENCE every week.  SCIENCE covers social sciences
as well as 'natural' and also laboratory sciences.  There are almost 
certainly more articles on biology than any other field, but there are also
articles on topics from geology, economics, demography, cognitive science,
etc.  I do not read NATURE often enough to have a sense of its mix of
coverage of the social and behavioral sciences.

David Mark
dmark@sun.acsu.buffalo.edu
From: thinman@netcom.com (Technically Sweet)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: Homosexuality & Evolution
Date: 4 Sep 92 18:08:24 GMT
Article-I.D.: netcom.fxmnxf=.thinman
Organization: International Foundation for Internal Freedom

It is important to note that the discussion so far
has been based on the thoroughly bogus premise that
hetero/homo is a binary situation.  This is an
odd belief common in America, and has no basis
in fact.

-- 

Lance Norskog

Data is not information is not knowledge is not wisdom.
From: claird@NeoSoft.com (Cameron Laird)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: [ARCH] Paleontologic nits I pick (was: Pliestocene extinctions)
Date: 2 Sep 92 17:00:39 GMT
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900

In article <1992Aug31.233105.3571@javelin.sim.es.com> SJOSEPHS@130.187.170.178 (STEVEN JOSEPHSON) fails to attribute ...:
			.
			.
			.
>>suggested rather strongly that humans were responsible
>> for the extictions of Mammoth, Mastodons, Saber Tooth Tigers, Giant
>> Ground Sloths, and the rest of the megafauna, not only in North America, but
>> South America as well.  There are elaborate calculations about how fast humans
			.
			.
			.
There was a time that paleontologists discouraged
amateurs from saying "saber-toothed tiger", because
the saber-toothed felids were so distant in their
kinship to the tigers; is that still true?  Also,
I thought that there were no mammoths (mastodons,
yes, but mammoths, no) in most or all of the New
World, at whatever time humans arrived.
-- 

Cameron Laird
claird@Neosoft.com (claird%Neosoft.com@uunet.uu.net)	+1 713 267 7966
claird@litwin.com (claird%litwin.com@uunet.uu.net)  	+1 713 996 8546
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith)
Subject: Re: Pliestocene extinctions
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 92 15:49:44 GMT

DBRUM writes:
	
	1)  If Mastadon extinctions in North America were due to over-
	    redation by humans, how come their other, later sources of
	    animal food were not exhausted by them also (i.e., Buffalo,
	    etc.)? 

			<<< some deleted >>>
	    
	    The North American natives of historic times had/have
	    a very strong feeling for the land and the creatures upon it
	    for which they depended/depend on their livelyhood. 

			...

	     Only we Old World newcomers were/are stupid enough to commit
	     extinctions of valuable animals and plants.
	
	--danny




The large mammals that survived the Pliestocene extinctions were not the
major species during the glacation, as evidenced by relative abundance
in the fossil assemblages.  As the climate changed and the plant population
changed, so did the animal population that fed on them.  As far as I know
no plants went extinct at the end of the glacation, but many are no longer
living in the same location than they were during the glacation.  The
plant populations were more varied because, while the average temperature
was lower then than now, the extremes are greater now.  Temperature
extremes affect plant distribution more than temperature average.

There were deer, and elk, brown bear and bison living during the
glacation, but they were in small numbers compared to the species that
went extinct.  There were no Great Plains in glacial times; they developed
after the glaciers started to retreat.  Then the bison flourished to
exploit that food source.

The Plains Indian cultures that we usually think of didn't exist until
the Spanish brought horses to North America.  There were bison kills, to
be sure.  There are seveal massive kill sites in the West, including one
in Colorado where the paleoindians drove a large herd of bison over a cliff
and butchered the animals.  Several of the Plains tribes were agricultural
before the introduction of the horse and lost all tribal memory of their
previous life style.

The idea that early populations lived in harmony with their environment
is a modern myth, the current version of the "noble savage".  There is
extensive evidence that native populations caused the extinction of
many plants and animals when they moved into an area.  Particulary
hard hit were the islands.  1,000 pound lemurs lived in Madagasgar
until about 1,000 years ago.  Several smaller species also went extinct
at the same time, which is coincident with the arrival of humans.

The Hawaiin islanders caused the extinction of several bird species
that were hunted for their plumage.  The natives of New Zealand also
caused the extinction of a large flightless bird.  Jared Diamond in
"Discover" magazine had an article about 3 years ago on this very topic.



William Smith
Intel, SSD
From: dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu (David Mark)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: request for reports of how cultures react to cartographic maps
Date: 31 Aug 92 01:40:17 GMT
Organization: UB

Different cultures have different concepts of geographic space.  It seems
to me, then, that for cultures that did not themselves make cartographic
maps before their first contact with map-making cultures, there might be
considerable variation in their ability to comprehend and use such maps.
I seem to recall reports of some 'natives' immediately recognizing the
relation between maps and the local geography when first shown maps by
'explorers'.  If other cultures initially had trouble comprehending maps,
that ought to reveal something interesting about that culture's concept(s)
of geographic space.

I would be interested in any comments on this conjecture, but I am posting
here to request pointers to any published explorers reports regarding the
ease or difficuly of map comprehension by people from 'non-cartographic'
cultures.

David Mark
dmark@sun.acsu.buffalo.edu
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: conib@peri.gvg.tek.com (Coni Britten)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: How 'bout breasts (I HAVE two)
Date: 26 Aug 92 21:08:13 GMT
Organization: Grass Valley Group, Grass Valley, CA

In article <1992Aug20.152219.2261@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> rspear@sookit (Richard Spear) writes:
>##why are breasts larger than they need to be....
>
>if this is true (and the evidence from other primates seem to suggest that 
>breasts _are_ larger than they need to be - where are the physical anthros?)
>then my first guess would be for display...cultures have selected for this
>attribute.  whenever there is selection for variables in human pops, the


From this "logic" we would also conclude that the pot bellies that most men
form must be for display as well, since they are *clearly* larger than they need
to be.

Can't say I've ever met anyone who would actually *select* for this, though.

;-)


Coni Britten
conib@peri.gvg.tek.com
From: rcbi27@muvms3.bitnet (DBRUM)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: Pliestocene extinctions
Date: 3 Sep 92 17:50:10 GMT
Organization: Marshall University

A couple of questions:

1)  If Mastadon extinctions in North America were due to over-predation
    by humans, how come their other, later sources of animal food were
    not exhausted by them also (i.e., Buffalo, etc.)? The North American
    natives of historic times had/have a very strong feeling for the 
    land and the creatures upon it for which they depended/depend on their
    livelyhood. In all the "Indian theory" I have ever heard, the wild
    land itself was looked upon and looked after as a sort of vast and
    all-encompassing farm which it was man's responsibility to husband
    and cause to continually prosper. To kill off all of an obviously
    very important staple species seems utterly anti-thematic and foolhardy.
    If they were totally against such activity in historic times, why
    would they have been any different in pre-historic times? It just
    doesn't add up. The North American natives of historic times realized
    that when the Buffalo died off, so would they--wouldn't they have felt
    the same about the Mastadon in pre-historic times? Only we Old World
    newcomers were/are stupid enough to commit extinctions of valuable 
    animals and plants.

--danny
-- 
	"Were his solid black square paintings really,
	as the artist claimed, simply neutral, abstract
	compositions devoid of external references and
	meanings?" ***********************************
Xref: sparky sci.anthropology:814 talk.origins:10665
From: ds0007@buhao (Dale Skiba)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Homosexuality & Evolution
Date: 2 Sep 92 13:14:16 GMT
Organization: Medtronic, Inc.
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

arkdr@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (Dave Rindos) writes:
: dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott) writes:
: >Does homosexuality have a useful significance within the theory of
: >evolution?
: 
: For the GENETIC theory of evolution to be used in the "explanation" of
: homosexulity (in and of itself, a poorly defined term!) we would FIRST
: have to establish that it is biological rather than culturally defined. 
: 
: Since this is not the case -- that is, that sexual behaviour, like
: most other variable human behaviours, is a CULTURAL act -- then no
: point exists in even attempting to come up with scenarios based upon
: traditional notions of genetic advantage and conjectures derived from it.
: 

Let's see what some current research in this area says...

Science News Vol 142, No. 8, page 117.  (August 1992)

Genetic clues to female homosexuality

Genes substantially influence the development of homosexuality among
women, according to a primary study of female twins and adoptive sisters.
"Genes don't account for all individual differences in sexual orientation,
but pairs of female identical twins report homosexualty significantly
more often than pairs of female fraternal twins or biologically unrelated
sisters," says psychiatrist Richard C. Pillard of the Boston University
School of medicine, who conducted the study with psychologist J. Michael
Bailey of Northwestern University in Evanston Ill.

[...]

Homosexuality or bisexuality occurred among both sisters in nearly half
of the identical twin pairs, Baily asserts.  That figure drops to about
one quarter of the fraternal twin pairs and one in six adoptive-sister
pairs.

[...]
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: rath@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Subject: Re: Ghost Dance and precedents
Reply-To: rath@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Organization: Brandeis University
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 13:52:30 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.123014.13981@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk>, jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) writes:
>Correction to my previous post on this: I misremembered what the Zulu
>shaman Credo Vusa'mazulu Mutwa said about the national suicide of the Xhosa
>in his book "My People" (Anthony Blond, 1969: Penguin, 1971/77).  In fact
>he *does* relate it to colonialism: while the millenium promised in
>Nongqawuse's prophecy went beyond simply getting rid of the colonists, it
>did include that.
>
>What he also says is that the prophecy itself was probably a colonial hoax.
>Nongqawuse's revelation was given her by three "Figures" who he claims were
>agents sent by the colonial administrator Sir George Grey to impersonate
>traditional deities.  The reasons he gives for suspecting this:
>
>- the colonists stood to gain by exactly what happened (Grey settled the
>  area with Germans immediately afterwards);
>
>- the theological and eschatological contents of the prophecy (the sun
>  standing still, resurrection, prediction by calendar date) were alien to
>  Xhosa tradition, but characteristic of Christian myth;
>
>- Grey's overtly stated administrative policies.
>
>What Mutwa doesn't make enough of is that Grey was one of the very few
>people who could have pulled something like that off: he was an extremely
>able folklorist who had already written two books on the folklore of the
>Australian Aborigines when governor of South Australia.  Grey subsequently
>went to New Zealand and wrote on Polynesian mythology; the Maori never
>suffered anything quite like the Xhosa, but the later stages of the Maori
>Wars did involve a militarist cult (the Hauhau) with a belief in magical
>invulnerability.
>
>-- 
>--  Jack Campin    room G092, Computing Science Department, Glasgow University,
>17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RZ, Scotland   TEL: 041 339 8855 x6854 (work)
>INTERNET: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk or via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk    FAX: 041 330 4913
>BANG!net: via mcsun and uknet     BITNET: via UKACRL    UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp
From: SJOSEPHS@130.187.183.14 (STEVEN JOSEPHSON)
Subject: Re: Pliestocene extinctions
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp.
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 18:56:19 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.11

In <1992Sep1.153628.24889@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> rspear@sookit writes:

> ..man as a cause of extinctions...
> 
> i wonder if anyone has looked at what this data might say about 
> population size...pre-'neolithic revolution' pops are always projected
> as quite small...was the extermination of mega-herbs just 'sport', or
> have we badly underestimated pop prehistoric pop sizes?
>

Estimating prehistoric population size is a dicey thing at best - what do you
use to make estimates?  Number of archaeological sites?  Some h-g's leave
almost none at all, even at substantial pop levels.  Available biomass?
Estimates on returns for hunting time vary so much between h-g groups, within
groups seasonally and annually that such estimates are highly questionable. 
The only thing that seems clear to me about human hunting is that it has be 
*grossly* overestimated as the premiere feature of human ecology. 
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: lcatlett@milton.u.washington.edu (Lynn Catlett)
Subject:  What did he say/where did he say it?
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 15:56:31 GMT

Can anyone help me locate a quote from Claude
Levi-Strauss  ... he summarized part of a (South 
American, I think) tribal creation myth, which
ended

	Thus it was by a trick that night
	made its way into the sky.

I've ransacked our library's CL-S collection, but
haven't found the reference and don't have the
discipline/strength/madness/whatever to read it all...
Can anyone save my sanity and direct me to the correct\
volume?  

Forever grateful,
Lynn Catlett
lcatlett@u.washington.edu

Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith)
Subject: Re: [ARCH] Paleontologic nits I pick (was: Pliestocene extinctions)
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 92 21:01:07 GMT

Cameron Laird writes:
				.
	There was a time that paleontologists discouraged
	amateurs from saying "saber-toothed tiger", because
	the saber-toothed felids were so distant in their
	kinship to the tigers; is that still true?  Also,
	I thought that there were no mammoths (mastodons,
	yes, but mammoths, no) in most or all of the New
	World, at whatever time humans arrived.



You are correct, I should have said saber-toothed cats.

As for there not being any mammoths, I don't believe that is true.
Since I'm away from my references I can't check on it, but I thought
it was mammoths that ranged far and wide in North America, including
down into what is now Mexico.  And this was during undisputed human
occupation times.


William Smith
Intel, SSD

Xref: sparky sci.anthropology:812 talk.origins:10636
From: shaman@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (David Melton)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Homosexuality & Evolution
Date: 2 Sep 92 14:39:22 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center


	I have often thought that homosexuality's main purpose was so that
truly creative people weren't burdened by children.  I'm not sure if it ap-
plies here though.

Just my $.02 worth!

-- 
========  
 I(  )I     David A. Melton                      
 I \/ I     shaman@mentor.cc.purdue.edu                                        
 I /\ I     Priest, Our Lady of the Hourglass Wiccan Church
From: mcke@unixg.ubc.ca (William McKellin )
Subject: Re: Progs for teaching kinship?
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 18:04:29 GMT

Last year at the AAA there were several presentations on kinship
programs in a session organized by Dwight Read (UCLA). I don't have
his complete e-mail address handy (read@ ??? .ucla.edu).  Michael
Fischer at University of Kent (Canterbury) has also worked in this
area.


Bill McKellin                             mcke@unixg.ubc.ca
Department of Anthropology and Sociology
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, B.C. 
V6T 1Z1 
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: jcsmrr@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu (John C. Sommerer)
Subject: request for reports of how cultures react to cartographic maps
Reply-To: jcsmrr@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu (John C. Sommerer)
Organization: The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 13:01:05 GMT

David Mark posts:

"Different cultures have different concepts of geographic space.  It seems
to me, then, that for cultures that did not themselves make cartographic
maps before their first contact with map-making cultures, there might be
considerable variation in their ability to comprehend and use such maps.
I seem to recall reports of some 'natives' immediately recognizing the
relation between maps and the local geography when first shown maps by
'explorers'.  If other cultures initially had trouble comprehending maps,
that ought to reveal something interesting about that culture's concept(s)
of geographic space.

I would be interested in any comments on this conjecture, but I am posting
here to request pointers to any published explorers reports regarding the
ease or difficuly of map comprehension by people from 'non-cartographic'
cultures.

David Mark
dmark@sun.acsu.buffalo.edu"

I don't know if you intended to include modern cultures, but I have the 
following observations about Egypt, where I have made several extended 
visits. In dealing with drivers who clearly had a great deal of practical 
geographic information (and to find their way around Cairo, say, they needed 
it), they had almost no comprehension of what a map was for or how to use it. 
I should mention that I had maps printed in Arabic, and most of the drivers 
were literate, so it was nothing as simple as that. One driver I worked with 
for some time eventually came to the conclusion that I had ways of divining 
navigational information from the particular set of documents known as 
"maps," but was unable to make any use of them himself. I have often wondered 
if these people have a (to me) completely different representation of their 
geographic knowlege, such as a set of directed graphs. In the south, one 
could speculate that since almost all navigation consists of counting 
villages north or south and keeping track of which side of the Nile one is 
on, representational geography wouldn't be much use, but in the north and 
Cairo especially, this would not make sense.

One contrasting anecdote. On a later trip to Turkey, with much of the time 
spent in rural areas, I frequently wore a wind shell with a world map on it. 
Many small children would delightedly point out Turkey on the map, which lay 
over my ribs on the side. I was tickled all the way across the country.

John Sommerer



Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,sci.skeptic,soc.men