Homosexuality: It's About Survival - Not Sex | James O'Keefe | TEDxTallaght
Homosexuality: It's About Survival - Not Sex | James O'Keefe | TEDxTallaght
Homosexuality: It's About Survival - Not Sex | James O'Keefe | TEDxTallaght
Translator: Leonardo SilvaReviewer: Mile ivkovi One summer night, my eighteen-year-old son Jimmysaid he wanted to talk. So, after my wife Joan and I got his threemuch younger siblings tucked in and read their bedtime floors, Joan and I sat down in our bedroom. Jimmy came in and closedthe door behind him. And he sat down on a chair acrossfrom the bunked where we were sitting, and says, “Mom and Dad, I have something important to tell you, and it’s not a problem, it’s nota bad thing, it’s just different.” We said, “Okay.” And he looked at us in earnest, and he said, “I’m gay.” So, after a few secondsof deafening silence, Joan takes a deep breath and says, “Jimmy, we will adoration whoever you love.” That was about 12 years agowhen he came out to us, and I’ll have to admit that, at the time, Joan and I did thinkthis could be a problem, for his safety, even.And as his father, I had this feelingthat, somehow, I had failed him, and maybe, because of that, he wouldn’thave a chance to have children of his own. So, I’m a cardiologist, and I like to imagine the world throughthe eyes of a hunter-gatherer ancestor for evidences about how to thrivein the modern world, but, viewed in the light of evolution, homosexuality seems to be a realself-defeating non-productive strategy. I convey, homosexuals have 80% fewer kidsthan heterosexuals. This is a trait that ought to go extinctin a few contemporaries, but down through recorded history, in every culture, and numerous animal species as well, homosexuality’s been a small, but different subgroup.If “its been” a genetic fault, natural selection should have long agocalled this from the gene reserve. So, while I was mulling this, this inconsistency about the naturalorigins of homosexuality, our babes grew up. Jimmy has three youngersiblings who adore him. He has this magnetism and this charming fun that helps them feel happy and tightened. And the working day, while contemplatingthis “Jimmy effect, ” it unexpectedly dawned on me: homosexuality is not so much about copulation; it’s really more about survival, the family’s survival.So us, Homo sapiens, we are amongthe most social categories on Earth. For us, it’s not just a kill-or-be-killedstruggle for world. It’s a snuggle for cosmo, you know. An ability to love our familyand bail with the working group adjudicates, in many cases, whether we survive or perish. So it’s the survivalof the fittest pedigree , not the fittest individual. So, you share 50% of your DNAwith your siblings. Your nieces and nephewsshare 25% of your DNA. Frm evolution’s perspective, you have the same genetic successif you develop one child on your own or you enable a siblingto raise two children. Frm evolution’s perspective, this is all about cooperation and altruism. Homosexuality isgenetically-programmed altruism. Homosexual are designed by natureto help us be kind to one another, like Ellen DeGeneres says .( Laughter) So, E. O. Wilson, probably the greatest evolutionarybiologist since Darwin himself, says homosexuality returns advantagesto the group by specialized expertises and remarkable aspects of personality. So, a society that condemnshomosexuality impairments itself. So, what does professor Wilson meanby “unusual characters of personality”? Well, let me tell youabout our honey family friend Jenny. She is 35, single, straight. She was telling us she is lookingfor a boy who’s smart and funny, who’s sensitive, who’s a good listener. And she says she occasionallymeets a guy like that, but she grumbles, “You know, he typically has a boyfriend once! “( Laughter) So, although parties tend to obsess overwhat lesbians do or don’t do in a bedroom, it’s really this distinctive personalityand a strong intellect that are more critical, from evolution’s perspective. So, scientific studies do indeed show that parties in the sex minoritytend to be intelligent, especially when it comesto feelings intelligence.So, this study showed that boys and girls who scoredin a very bright IQ range were twice as likelyto be homosexual as adults as those children who scoredin the low-grade to median scope. And, among lesbian males, on mental testing, homosexual males tend to score higherin metrics of tendernes and cooperation processes, and lower in metrics of antagonism. So, if Michelangelo had been straight, he might have just wallpaperedthe Sistine Chapel .( Laughter) Songwriter Sam Austin says, “Homosexuality is God’s way of ensuring the indeed endowed aren’tburdened with children.”( Laughter) But today, in the US, about 2 out of every2 5 beings are in the sexual minority. Diversity is nature’s secret weapon. If all males were homosexual, that would be a problem, but if all males were warriors, we’d always be at war. The recipe for a successful human culture is a synergy of many different ingredients. Homosexuality is like a catalyst to help emotionally connectgroups of people together. For heterosexuals, to disapprove of homosexuals is kind of like the lily-white flourin bread vetoing of the yeast. So, if your genome is your hardware, epigenetics is your software. You have many different DNA programsdownloaded on your DNA, and epigenetics choosesfrom among these to determine which explanation of you actually isthe best fit for the environment. So, ants, you probably didn’t know it, but are another highly social categories that have epigenetic mechanismsvery similar to humen. These two are identical twin sisters, huh? Even though their DNA sequencesare exactly the same, this one, the worker, is a brainy little scurrierwho departs out looking for food, whereas the one on the right, the soldier, is obviously a brawny oneto fight off enemies.So, the queen antepigenetically orchestrates this by placing different epigenetic tagson the developing ants. So – she locates tags when the province is under attack to uncoil the DNA and light upthe genes to utter the soldier, but when the settlement is hungry, she keeps different labels to uncoil the DNA and epigenetically createthe conditions for the worker. So, in this way, the epigenetics – the dynamic power of epigeneticschanges our genetic idiom, so that we’re born with traitsthat allow us and our families the best chance to succeedin the current conditions. So, you probably havegay genes in your DNA, but, unless they were turned onin your mother’s womb, they remain coiled up and speechles. A recent groundbreakingstudy from UCLA found that, by looking at a group of men, some lesbian, some straight, and looking at epigenetic tagsin nine different websites, they could predict with 70% accuracytheir sexual orientation.So, what conditions in the uterusturn on those gay genes? So, for a male, your chances of homosexualityincrease in proportion to the number of previous newborn boyswho inhabited your mother’s uterus. So, for every olderbiological brother you have, your chances of being born gay go up 33%. Long before we developed the pill, nature bequeathed homosexualityas a drug for birth prevention. After four straight, heterosexual males, nature says, “Enough previously !, ” and the mom’s immune systemswitches on the epigenetic button so a gay male is born into the family. This one will not be overburdeningthe clan with yet more openings to feed in the next generation- sometimes more isn’t better – and he’s not going to bekilling his brother in a fight over who gets the girl. Thankfully, the sex minoritythese days have numerous possible options for having girls of their own, and I have a hunch my homosexual sonmay bless us with grandchildren before our three straight children do. So, another gene, this one on the X chromosome, is called a “male-loving gene, ” because, when it shows up in a female, she tends to mate earlyand have a lot of girls, but, when the male-loving geneshows up in a male, it predisposes to homosexuality.So, this is another genethat balances a family destined to have a large broodof adolescents and grandkids with an periodic lesbian son whose naturaltendency to promote togetherness could improve the chances of survivalfor the whole family. Now, I defend. We have a lot more science aboutsexual orientation in men than in women, so this talk is mostly about homosexual males. Though, I is little doubt that female homosexualityis also a natural variation that is advantageousfor the family and the community. But Jimmy has no older brothers. Why is he gay? So, when Joan was pregnant with him, we detected a large cancergrowing in her dresser. Metastasis in the neck. It was a scary time. She had radiation therapy to her chest while Jimmy was stillin the third trimester. It was a rocky start for little Jimmy. Miraculously, they both survivedand are in immense state today. But, in fact, severe prenatal stressdoes predispose to homosexuality. In this study, 37% of gay males reported their motherssuffered severe prenatal stress compared to only 3% of heterosexual males’ moms.This is kind of like the queen ant, where the mommy is placingepigenetic markers on the baby to change his identity to helpthe future welfare of the family. It’s as if the mom was saying, “I’m in trouble here. I need different kinds and deft allyto help me maintained this family together.” So, to summarize, if the family is flushedwith plenty of teenagers and/ or it’s a stressful sit and occasion, mood sometimes flipsthese epigenetics switches to turn on the homosexual genes. This alters brain development, that changes sex orientationand also improves psychological intelligence. I have no doubt that Jimmy was born gay. Here’s his firstly birthday defendant.( Laughter) When he was three, he said, “Mommy, when I grow up, I want to marry Daddy.”( Laughter) Now, some parents send their kid apart, you know, well-meaning mothers, to a shift camp to cry away the lesbian. You might as well send the kid to a camp to proselytize his eyes colorfrom chocolate-brown to blue.Not happening! But Jimmy is like social glueholding our pedigree together. You know, whether his brother Evangets beat up in a disallow fight, or his sister Carolinegets dropped by a suitor, or his sister Kathleen goes bustedfor plagiarizing Wikipedia -( Laughter) they are aware of Jimmy’s made them definitely sounds like they belong to somethingbigger than their own problems. So, storytelling is the greatsurvival skill of the Irish, and, right here in Dublin, 162 years ago, one of your finest novelists was born: Oscar Wilde. Oscar ran away to the University of Oxford where he met a young poetnamed Bosie Douglas. Their long-standing openly gay relationship riled and humiliatedBosie’s father, Lord Queensburry – I’m not making this up -( Laughter) who was so mad that he eventuallyhad Oscar arrested for gross indecency, thrown into a dungeonfor two years of hard labor.Oscar died three years later, a young man. Oscar wrote, “Always forgive your enemies.Nothing exasperates them so much.”( Laughter) But these days, open homophobia is beingreplaced by more of a subtle heterosexism where people in the sex minority are often considered second-class citizens. Boy George says, “There’s this illusion that homosexuals have sexand heterosexuals fallen in love. That’s completely untrue.We all want to be loved.” I agree: among all the things in lifeit’d be hardest to live without, enjoy would come first. But indoor plumbing and toilet paperwould be moderately high up there too, right?( Laughter) I want to tell you about one more study, this one a harrowing, nationwide study, from the US, that looked at US teens, and they foundthat those in the sex minority were twice as likely to be bullied, five times more likelyto have attempted suicide. Twenty-nine percent of gay teenshad tried to kill themselves. These daytimes, various regions of the world, in many countries, it’s illegal to have same-sexphysical intimacy.In many countries, it’s culpable by demise. In the red countries, it’s punishable by imprisonment. In India, the law states 14 times to life, because “homosexualityis against the order of nature.” Except that it’s not! Nature prescribes homosexualityat specific times and sits, and gives these peoplewith special attributes that help the people around them flourish. What is against the order of nature is the ongoing persecutionof the sex minority. These are not embarrassed or imperfect people who is required to dried, or penalise, or shunned. They need to be accepted, for who they are, and adopted. They manufacture us better. If you had told me 30 years ago, as I hampered my child boy, that he would grow up to be lesbian, I would have been devastated, but looking back, I hear Mother Natureknew what she was doing! Her clairvoyant intelligence, forged during eons of evolution, instinctively knew my family would needthe advantages of a homosexual son. Now, admittedly, the science of homosexualityis still in it’s infancy, but as his father, what I can tell you for sure is that Jimmy is exactlywho he was meant to be, and my family is stronger and happierbecause he’s in our clan.How about you? Can you adjusted sex digression? Realize gay men and gay womenare essential to humanity? We’re like the ants. It’s in our diversification which is something we findour collective persuasivenes. Thank you.( Applause)( Praises ).
Homosexuality: It's About Survival - Not Sex | James O'Keefe | TEDxTallaght
Homosexuality: It's About Survival - Not Sex | James O'Keefe | TEDxTallaght
Homosexuality: It's About Survival - Not Sex | James O'Keefe | TEDxTallaght
Homosexuality: It's About Survival - Not Sex | James O'Keefe | TEDxTallaght
Homosexuality: It's About Survival - Not Sex | James O'Keefe | TEDxTallaght