THE GAY GENE
by ALAN SAMONS
Around half of all straight people carry a gay gene. Could science explain how homosexuality is passed down generations? Why do gay people exist? In a world where a man and a woman are needed to make a baby, scientists have questioned for decades why homosexuality exists in thousands of different species.
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ew research suggests around half of all people could be carrying a gay gene, meaning homosexuality is passed down generations despite the tendency of gay people not to have children. “This has helped homosexuality to be present among humans throughout history and in all cultures, even though homosexual men normally do not have many descendants who can directly inherit their genes,“ Giorgi Chaladze, of the Ilia State University in Georgia, said. Using a computational model to look at the influence of
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genes and heredity on homosexuality, Chaladze tried to find out why genes associated with homosexuality don’t die out. As straight men, unsurprisingly, are far more likely to have children than gay men, surely the genes connected with homosexuality should eventually become extinct? But based on Chaladze’s calculations, published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior and reported by Science Daily, male homosexuality is maintained in a population at “low and stable frequencies“ if half of the men and roughly more than half of the women carry genes that predispose men
