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Penguins ❤️ (mander.xyz)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

From the penguin documentaries I watched as a kid, I feel like the "leaving eggs behind" might involve relentless bullying.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

It takes two penguins working together to care for an egg, if one penguin dies the remaining penguin can't hold the egg and feed itself, so either a couple steps up or a lone penguin joins the remaining penguin, having several homosexual couples who are on standby to take care of orphan eggs is a clear evolutionary advantage.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'd be cautious with saying evolutionary advantage here.

I don't believe the "Gay Uncle hypothesis" any more than the somewhat debunked "Grandmother Hypothesis", which aimed to explain menopause with biological altruism. Just because we could think of a way in that it might be advantageous for a species doesn't mean it's advantageous for an individuals fitness.

Of course, it can be still an advantage, but we'd only know with more free, uncensored research.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Does evolutionary pressure only exist on individuals? I've never heard that. There's a wide variety of species that are highly socially organized, do you not accept that that's through evolutionarily pressure?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I never said that. What I meant is that a behaviour, which benefits a species as a whole but reduces one individual's fitness, is not evolutionary competitive. It's evolutionary game theory, like the prisoners dilemma from normal game theory.

And to determine if some behaviour is such a dilemma, you have to consider costs and benefits of it, which is not at all clear in natural situations. That's why I said it needs to be studied.

But I must concede, I sort of assumed what exactly you called an evolutionary advantage. Common homosexuality in penguins or not discriminating against homosexual individuals in penguins have very different analysis here.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

That or the parents starved to death or got eaten by a seal