Experiment Q

25 Dec 2019

Same-sex attraction and Evolution

Natural Sciences, Science & Medicine

Same-sex attraction is something that seems at first like it should be selected against by evolution, and yet we see it, not only in humans, but also in many other animals as well. Clearly, there’s more to this story than simply inheritance and natural selection.

Last week we talked about the genetic architecture that may contribute to same-sex attraction in humans, however we didn’t talk much about environmental factors, or how those genes would propagate in a population that undergoes evolutionary pressures.

This week we’re talking to Dr Bob Wong, an expert on animal reproductive behaviours at Monash University, to learn more about same-sex attraction in an evolutionary context.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:56 — 17.3MB)

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