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Against nature? Homosexuality and evolution

By news editor, on 25 November 2011

Dave Weston reports on a Lunch Hour Lecture guaranteed to generate robust debate.

Same-sex sexual behaviour is often condemned on the grounds that it’s ‘against nature’. Indeed, biology tells us that selection favours those who leave more offspring. But then, homosexual behaviour is widespread – not only among humans, but also throughout the animal kingdom.

So, does that constitute a paradox for Darwinian theory? And is there a connection between what goes on in nature and what is morally desirable? These were the tricky questions that Professor Volker Sommer set out to address in a Lunch Hour Lecture on 17 November.

I’ve heard Volker speak several times before. His official title is Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at UCL and he’s an expert in behavioural ecology, having spent many years studying the behaviour of monkeys, apes… and people. The combination of an eminently quotable and engaging speaker with a live audience and potentially controversial subject matter meant this was always going to be a popular lecture.

(more…)