a transgendered biologist challenges Darwin on homosexuality

[liveonearth]

http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/06/the_gay_animal_kingdom.php?utm_source=SB-rightcol&utm_medium=linklist&utm_campaign=internal+linkshare

Fascinating article.

Also, here's a story about a transgendered scientist who went from being female (Barbara) to male (Ben) and discovered that the discrimination that had prevented his research from being accepted was transformed into respect.....with his change in appearance and gender identity.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115274744775305134-cG77ShkElmkHlgg94ug_4aIsp50_20070712.html

Comments

sexual intimacy for social stability

[skyojos.livejournal.com]

What a great article!!! I'm going to re-read it.

Re: sexual intimacy for social stability

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

Do you think her theory applies in human society?

Re: sexual intimacy for social stability

[skyojos.livejournal.com]

Well, I have lots of thoughts about this and lots of questions. I'm at work now and need to be more vigilant about not spending much personal time. We certainly think of human society as the most complex. Then we have all this religion and all these forms of social control. Embedded in all this we have an evolution of human experience and memory and reflection on history. There are hundreds of tangents here, maybe thousands. I have always wanted to study more anthropology and to know more about early and isolated human communities. gotta work now...

Re: sexual intimacy for social stability

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

I think that human society is most removed from our animal nature of any animals. This is evidenced by the things that we construct, and by the extent disease can reach in people's bodies before they realize something is wrong....not that I can ask a dog if he knows he has cancer, but we just seem more out of touch to me.... so I have no confidence that animal level bonding can have any beneficial effect on society, especially if it is same sex bonding which is directly attacked by large segments (organize religion mostly) of our society. So with this in mind I do not believe that same-sex bonding yields social stability---what I see is that it actually causes a great deal of discomfort and unrest. Or maybe, more specifically, the judgemental nature of organized religion causes unrest and discomfort.