Tony Perkins plays the “Evolution Proves Homosexuality Is Wrong” game.
Perkins agreed with the caller’s take on evolution, stating that
the evidence is overwhelmingthat evolution doesn’t occur. However, since Obama and Clinton believe thatwe are constantly in this state of evolution,Perkins said, then they should oppose gay rights.
If you logically game this out, the idea that somehow same-sex marriage or same-sex attraction, homosexuality, could be the advancement of evolution,he said,well, it would be the end of the road. It is a dead-end street. You’re certainly not going to reproduce.
Evolution is a fact, first of all, and he’s an ignoramus. But skipping over that for now to play the logic game…
If we logically game this out, if God is perfect, and God created us, then aren’t gay people the way He wanted them? If they’re flawed, isn’t He the one that’s supposed to judge, not you?
Also, if we logically game out evolution, as I’ve pointed out before, claiming that anything that reduces reproduction rates in any way is impossible for evolution means that we ought to be single-celled organisms reproducing asexually. That we’re not says that Tony Perkins doesn’t actually understand evolution.
CBS had this bigoted clown on Face the Nation yesterday morning. To discuss same sex marriage. I’m sure it was awful, but I turned it off when I heard his name.
Argumentum ad god is as dumb as I am?
This whole “gay people don’t reproduce” trope is so weird, Oscar Wilde had two sons and many people who now identify as gay were once in heterosexual relationships simply because that’s what society expected of them. In effect, Perkins, because of his warped ideology, is in fact coercing more people into heterosexual relationships and causing “teh gays” to reproduce and causing the propagation of the gay gene!
(For clarification I do realise there is no “gay gene”)
interesting the choice of words used here. Logic is a game and he uses words as just a game something not serious something secondary to be used to bring you to the emotional point of faith. Reason is not a valuable tool that can help us discover the truth it is a game with which words can be used anyway you want by picking the words (facts) to say what you want.
It sounds like it means what it they say it means but it does not stand up to analysis and always goes off the deep end into fantasy land.
all of the “true believers” sound like that to me.
uncle frogy
If we logically game this out, and god is perfect, and god created us then the existence of homosexuals means that… wait for it… the lord works in mysterious ways.
Game, set, match.
Head Inserted in Arse Prevents Shite From Coming Out the Usual Channel.
Needs work, HIAPSFCOUC isn’t pronounceable…
HARS: Head in Arse Reversing Shitespew.
ABAH: Argument By Arseblocking Head.
ANAL: Argument Not Applying Logic.
XIAN: eXtreme Incompetence And Naïvety.
They really need to explain dogs.
They hump legs. And cushions. How come they haven’t died out yet?
Also, yeah, PiV is just about reproducing, that’s why nobody ever invented contraception.
The Loner Fallacy.
Since individuals do not negatively affect the gene pool, except in some extreme edge-cases.
Jesus didn’t reproduce.
This guy Perkins sounds like a real simpleton. I am a simpleton so I know one when I see one. My knowledge of biology is rudimentary high school so go easy on me here.
That being said, Perkins seems to be talking about individual pairs of couples not creating young and that somehow means an end to a species. But we’re actually talking about breeding populations. Not every member of a species would be homosexual, depending on the species the rate of homosexuality will vary and evolutionary processes will determine that rate as a kind of natural governor, maybe? In fact some species seem to prosper, evolutionarily speaking, with most members being the same sex. Like bees or ants, those are much more complex organisms than single-celled organisms. Very few bees are heterosexual, or sexual, in any way. (I think)
Humans are more complex still. But since were really talking about whole breeding populations and not every human is homosexual would homosexuality be detrimental or advantageous to passing on genes and whatnot. Homosexuality should at least be evolutionarily neutral for the trait to continue. I have nothing to back this up but I would think that homosexuality perhaps is an evolutionary advantage. I mean one aspect of this is, with humans in particular its very costly to raise young, it requires a long time and a lot of energy. It might be an advantage to have additional adults around who will also invest in raising younglings. (heh) So perhaps we’re not so different than bees, that’s essentially their system. They have thousands of females who invest their time and effort into raising their sisters offspring. So maybe humans have made use of that kind of evolutionary advantage too, but not to such a degree.
Like I said I’m pretty ignorant about biology so this could be completely wrong.
“Gay” means “_attracted_ to the persons of the same sex as the attracted”. “Attracted” is different than “obligated”. Even a ghey might fall in love with a _person_ of the opposite sex, and reproduce. Another key fail of the EvoPsych paradigm. If evo is responsible for everything psychologically, then where does “gayness” come from?
[rhetorically].
Why obsess that people are just robots, preprogrammed to reproduce? Are we of no other value? “survival of the fittest” applies to the ENTIRE species, not to indivduals of a species. Contributing to a community (aside from reproduction), qualifies as fitness as well.
.
I’m suspicious that the caller who asked about ‘evo v gay’, might have been the Beele, VD, character. [VD so recently made that assertion, it’s easy to make the association]
slithey tove
They may also simply decide to reproduce with each other.
Really, I don’t know why people seem to think that suddenly some magic is required for human reproduction*.
*Not you, I guess, but I know that a lot of people think that lesbians who get pregnant from a sperm donor need IVF. Usually they need a cup up fresh sperm and a syringe.
If any non reproductive relationship goes against evolution and is, therefore, bad, what does that say about the high value placed on the virginity of unmarried women? It sounds to me like fundamentalist Christianity could be considered a birth defect.
Forgot to put in fallacy name. Argumentum ad simplex?
re @10:
Here’s a factoid to add to your simpleton mindset (cuz I’m one too): I once read that a large percentage of gay males are not the eldest from a family of several children. (maybe it was phrased in the converse: “a small percentage of gays are firstborn, or singletons.”). The point being, that as a younger member of the family and not internally compelled to leave the family, to form his own, he may be a net positive for the family’s survival, being not hetero.
I call this a “factoid”, deliberately, as something presented as a fact with no backing references. I’d really like to have it dispelled.
But being gay is a choice and free will or something!
He is judging them, through the Christians, obviously. God just told us not to judge people by our standards, but he’s all about us using his standards to judge people.
Leastwise I assume that’s the standard rebuttal.
themann1086
27 April 2015 at 1:30 pm
I read some quotes that he was roughed up by the anchor referring to his organization as a bigoted, hate organization per Southern Poverty Law Center. I did not watch it either, but it sounded like more of a smack down with most of the guests supporting or reasoning SSM was defacto right and will happen.
Oh FFS. There have been queer people for as long as there’s been people. There have also been lots of hetero people who have not reproduced. There have also been bisexual people who have reproduced. And so on. Nowadays, thanks to good contraception and sterilisation methods, lots of people choose not to breed. People who do choose to breed are of all orientations and genders. It’s not difficult at all, and it’s hardly the case that we’re running low on people or anything.
How about Reductio ad Populum* (I know, Romanes eunt domus, and all that; my Latin classes were about 30 years ago…)? A mash-up of the Latin terms for two different fallacies, with the (very?) loose translation of, “If homosexuality was natural, everyone would be gay, and the human population would rapidly be reduced to nothing.”
*Google Translate seems to think Reductio incolarum (reduction of the population) is more correct, but I like the mash-up/malapropism better.
Game Out Fallacy.
So, even if homosexuality was an error of evolution (whatever that means) or a birth defect (whatever that means), what’s the point? How do you construct an argument against same-sex marriage from that? If anything, he should be in favor of same-sex marriage because that would mean fewer homosexuals end up in hetero marriages and are “forced” to reproduce or whatever.
Caine, #18
^^QFT! Every word of that comment.
Evolutionary advantage applies to the survival of the entire species. I think humans are far, far beyond the point where it is advantageous to have every individual spawn multiple offspring. It seems likely that overpopulation will help lead to our demise, so we don’t need to be throwing fits about non reproductive sex of any kind.
BIBLE
Bunk Induced By Lacking Education.
Does this have something to do with that Gay Agenda™ I’ve been hearing so much about? The one that says “Once gay marriage is legal, EVERYONE IS REQUIRED TO BE GAY UNDER PAIN OF DEATH” and that only exists in the minds of bigoted simpletons?
Or is this guy arguing that homosexual couples don’t exist? (… lest we’d all be dead by now, according to them thar evilutionists… huh?)
I’m so confused right now…
At least this guy is clear that he is trying to state what the other side’s position should be based on the other side’s premises. He is wrong, ‘way wrong, in every way, but I wanted to give him that.
And yeah, reproducing like holy fuck is not always best for the species. Tragedy of the commons and all that.
A few extra adults helping altruistically is often going to be a good thing.
I remember once explaining to a friend that sex must not ALWAYS be needed for babies, because my aunt had kids and she wasn’t married. That was in first grade.
I’m not sure why Tony Perkins brings up that old memory…
According to Wikipedia (and thus with the appropriate large grain of salt) there are studies that support and don’t support the hypothesis that a man having older brothers increases the chances of him being gay.
In any case, if the hypothesis is true, it would indicate that kin selection of some sort could have a role in preserving whatever alleles may relate to male homosexuality – though exactly what that role is will be difficult to disentangle anytime soon. That’s a question of human evolutionary psychology, and around here we all know how little good science there is in that realm.
I think there are multiple fallacies here, and at least one of them does have a name: the “is/ought” fallacy. Evolution is a description of what is; that fact says nothing about what we ought to do. Creationists get this confused, as someone once put it here more elegantly, because their origin story is meant to have moral implications.
What evidence does he have that evolution does not occur? How low is this guy’s whelming level?
If we understand that evolution does occur, it doesn’t follow that we are all for it and are trying to advance it. I mean, we accept that global warming occurs, and that cancer occurs, and that car accidents occur, but we aren’t trying to make them happen more.
Just another homophobic fallacy.
It’s called ‘appeal to nature.’ It is a recognized fallacy. The only reason it isn’t called ‘the naturalistic fallacy’ is that the name has already been taken and applied to something else (which, by the way, happens to be not a fallacy).
The Stupid It Burns Fallacy.
The I Know More About You and Your Specialty Than You Do Fallacy.
The Evolution Is Explaining Everything I Want It To Fallacy.
Evolutionary psychologists are also good at it.
I classify it as the “You-Liberals-Are-Supposed-To-Believe-In-Evolution-So-Why-Don’t-You-Support…” Fallacy.
Doesn’t the idiot realize that his argument only works if everybody is gay?
What about the Worker Bee Fallacy?
After all, if you logically game this out, the idea that somehow worker bees could be the advancement of evolution, well it would be the end of the road. It is a dead-end street. You’re certainly not going to reproduce.
Sounds like garbage in/garbage out. If you start with wild misconceptions of what evolution is and what it does, fueled by dogma that makes you reject it without consideration, you aren’t really engaging in anything “logical”, Mr. Perkins.
I vote for the Worker Bee Fallacy!
Opposing gay rights because evolution is like opposing airplanes because gravity.
Evolution is not an ideology.
It seems to me that it’s just a simple non-sequitor.
@ #36:
Just because one happens to be gay doesn’t it automatically rule out heterosexual activity.
Here’s my favorite commentary on this particular fallacy, in comic form.
I met a gay man the other day. We had both been heterosexual-married twice. He had had several children, while I, the mostly-straight one, have had zero.
Something in this thread reminded me of the argument that if abortion was legal, everybody would have abortions until America was completely depopulated and the Russisns would win. Seriously, they expect everybody would compulsively have abortions no matter what – no wonder they can’t comprehend evolution.
“Fallacy pileup.”
1) Naturalistic fallacy: even if evolution favors one thing, doesn’t mean that we should.
2) Teleological fallacy: evolution does not produce optimal solutions.
3) Strawman: evolution is about individuals rather than populations.
3) False dichotomy: “either you fuck men either you fuck women”. There is a reason why LGBT+ movements use the rainbow.
I nominate the Perk-o-latent Hate Fallacy.
It keeps bubbling up and never changes until it goes away.
What possible benefit could there be? Social species don’t exist, after all, it’s every organism for itself! Families, tribes, communities don’t exist. Nor do ants or bees or any other cooperative species, apparently.
peanutcat @36:
Yes, but has already been established, legalising same-sex marriage forces everyone to be gay.
Do try to keep up.
Firstly, no one suggested that.
Secondly, how does one “advance” evolution? I can’t help thinking this is another example of that nonsense belief that evolution is steadily advancing towards some distant incarnation of perfection.
Thirdly, natural selection has ceased to be the most significant driving factor to human evolution in the 21st century. Modern medicine and the trappings of civilization have pretty much put paid to that.
Fourthly, there have been attempts before to, um… “find a solution” for people judged to be evolutionarily unviable, and look how that turned out. I would suggest that restricting people’s rights because you have judged them to be evolutionarily unviable may be the first step down a very dark and surprisingly short road that we don’t really want to go down again.
Fifthly, I’m not sure this requires a name. It’s not really a fault in his reasoning; he’s basically just completely misunderstood what evolution is, and therefore started from an incorrect premise, and thus come to an incorrect conclusion.
@27 mithrandir
That’s jumping to the conclussion that it is a selected for trait. There’s nothing that indicates that homosexual males appearing in higher frequencies as a consequence of varying hormonal responses developing through multiple male gestations, couldn’t just be accidental and rather than beneficial, simply not be detrimental enough that selection against it happens in any significant form. Basically…”nature” doesn’t give a fuck if there are some gay males out there, because it’s not causing any trouble whatsoever….
Many good responses above mine, of course.
This non-biologist just sez ‘individuals don’t evolve, populations do’ and there may well be survival advantages for a population with a few percent of gay individuals.
PZ, maybe you should do a post about kin and group selection…
I like Richard Smith’s suggestion. The argument, regardless of god babble or not, is that “If everyone did/was X, then consequence Y”. Leave aside the issue that everyone having homosexual attraction doesn’t mean that they MUST only have sex with the same sex. Leave aside the other issue that artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization are things that exist. Both of these directly refute the idea, but even if those two details weren’t in play, the argument is still asinine.
Perhaps we should call it a Kant Cant?
It’s the same logic: “X is only moral if the world is good and logical when everyone does it”. That’s a great way to think about the ethics of things like murder and theft. Or even to things like littering. It doesn’t make sense when applied to a lot of other situations. You could argue against the ethics of people eating, or argue that any specific career or profession is unethical because if everyone did that one specific career and nothing else, society would collapse. You could argue that it is immoral to have male genitalia, or to have female genitalia. It is immoral to have no kids. It is immoral to have six kids. It is immoral to live until age 120. It is immoral to die at age 20. It is immoral to take pain medication. It is immoral to take insulin shots. It is immoral to sleep 12 hours. It is immoral to sleep 2 hours. It is immoral to ride the bus. It is immoral to take a trip to Italy. It is immoral to earn $100,000 a year. It is immoral to have no income. And on and on and on.
The logic of the argument doesn’t work universally. It doesn’t make sense in certain contexts. It certainly doesn’t make sense on issues where, emphatically, no one is saying that everyone should be doing it. It doesn’t have to be “good” when performed universally in order for the act to be considered “good” (or replace “good” with “permissible”). That is the core logical flaw of this kind of argument.
Mr. Perkins should tell that to the millions of homosexual men and women who HAVE reproduced.
The whole “gay marriage means everyone must gay marry” sounds like an expansive version of “Everything not forbidden is mandatory”
.
re Kant:
Rand’s key nemesis. Isn’t Kant saying something along the lines of “Treat others as you would have others treat you”, Just ephemeralizing it to “it can only be called good IF everyone doing it is a good thing”.
buttttttt… I just skimmed your note, above, and tried to read Kant and couldn’t penetrate his verbiage at all…
If gay people don’t reproduce, then there is no reason to bring up children when discusing gay marriage.
There’s already a name for it. It’s a non sequitur.