Homophobia Explained 3/8

Again, sorry for bad quality of the visual part: The table can be seen more clearly here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Nbz5jBNa-w0


In this version, the problem is, unlike many formulations of Fisher's problem, not vulnerable to the so-called tickle defense (Jackson and Pargetter 1983): A smoker's wish to continue to smoke may indicate the presence of the fatal genetic disposition -- which is why he or she might as well continue to smoke --, but any subjective tickle which could serve as evidence for the one or other genetic disposition is ruled out in the present special case, where homophobia is an external condition most unlikely to reflect a personal bias in our adolescent male.

Moreover, the dilemma's soundness would not be diminished by the possible fact that Camperio Ciani's explanation applies only to a percentage q of the occurrence of human male homosexuality: Given Camperio Ciani's evidence, the external parameters of the game situation, and the subject's preferences, it is clear that becoming homosexual still increases the animal's hope that his family will be larger-than-average -- unless a secure criterion for determining whether or not, if you should turn homosexual, you will belong to the q-fraction be at hand and unless a similar genetic fecundity booster be present in the relatives of at least the q-part of heterosexual males, where the latter would, however, be utterly incompatible with the general evidence of homosexual males' maternal female relatives (and only these) being significantly more fecund than those (or any other relatives) of heterosexual males; and where the discovery of the criterion would, most likely, merely reduce the number of dilemma cases but not necessarily kill the dilemma altogether.

We can thus construct the following game-theoretic model of the situation. Let p be a probability function. Let c1, ..., cn be choices of the agent, s1, ..., sn states of affairs relevant to the decision, whose payoffs are given by a utility function
u(ci; si ). The specific choices, which are exhaustive and exclusive, are becoming heterosexual, c1 , and becoming homosexual, c2, the relevant (exhaustive, exclusive) states of affairs are s1: "genetic factors for female fecundity and male homosexuality are not present" and s2: "genetic factors for female fecundity and male homosexuality are present" (see Tab.1).

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• gay
• sexuality
• Camperio
• Ciani
• psychology
• ethology
• behavioral
• ecology
• straight
• evolution
• aversion
• emotion