Laelia wrote:
No responsible scientist would ever say any hypothesis was "definitely completely" true, especially with something as difficult to interpret as animal behaviour. Saying "this is probably what's going on" is as definitive as it's going to get. You say your guess is based on "some grounding" - besides your viewing of a 3 minute Youtube video and desperation to defend a discredited argument made on an internet forum, what are you basing your interpretation on? Do you have any background knowledge of dolphin behaviour, anatomy, or physiology comparable to the scientists whose views you're dismissing out of hand?
I explained the rationale behind my assessment very clearly, maybe you "misread" it and missed what I had to say. I say it could just as easily be some form of grooming behavior, and given the nature of what's being groomed, such behavior is probably very necessary. That assessment is based off 3 minutes of youtube bullshit, basic knowledge of how nasty sex organs are on mammals, and the idea that animals act like animals and not people, so they're probably doing something that animals routinely do. Apes pick bugs off each, and birds eat pests off rhinos, the idea of one animal cleaning another is more plausible than the idea that they're gay for each.
Laelia wrote:
The point I was arguing with you is whether or not homosexual behaviour occurs in nature. It does, and the book I linked reviews the subject with citations to observations of homosexual behaviour in hundreds of species. Based on your misreading of a review of that book you seem to have decided that said evidence doesn't exist, or something. The easiest way for you to find out what the book actually says would be to read it for yourself.
Well, that's just convenient, isn't it? "My point is valid because this book says so. Ignore the obvious bias in the review in the link I posted about it, it's not important because it's not the book. Oh, you don't have the book readily available? That's just too bad, you'll have to take my word for it."
You know why I "seem to have decided that said evidence doesn't exist?" I've decided that because so far what you've submitted as "evidence" is terribly unconvincing.
Let's say, for the sake of argument and not because you've done anything to convince me, that animals do display homosexual behavior in nature. How do we know it's really "homosexual," other than the fact that it's two males? Do you think that an animal, driven by impulses and not by cognitive reasoning, stops to think about where they're sticking their wing-wang, or is it merely a matter of "hardcockmustgosomewherenow," and they're sticking their junk in whatever is available without any regard to what it is? Can you make a legitimate comparison between a human being limiting itself to sex with its own gender to an animal of any type simply seeking release in any manner possible? I think that is too apples and oranges a comparison to make.
I know animals display homosexual behavior in captivity (I grew up in a farming community), but under such conditions they are removed from their natural environment. It's the same as putting a person in prison. Would a prisoner engage in homosexual behavior if they could engage in heterosexual behavior? As you say, no one can (or should) say with certainty, but I believe the odds would favor heterosexuality over homosexuality. This was something that was discussed in a philosophy class I took as an elective a few years ago. There's an implication that human society is itself seriously flawed and unnatural if it creates/encourages/contributes to behaviors out of the norm.
This still has nothing to do with results of arguing that homosexuality should be embraced because some people want to excuse their behavior by arguing that they're "born that way."
Your Pal,
Jubber
