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Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

(www.psychiatrymargins.com)
262 points Anon84 | 1 comments | 28 Jun 25 21:22 UTC | HN request time: 0.206s | source
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HarHarVeryFunny ◴[29 Jun 25 12:17 UTC] No.44412495[source]▶
Genetics is messy - as I understand it most genes don't code for a single thing, so assuming evolution is "selecting for schizophrenia" that only implies that there is an evolutionary benefit to some of the things controlled by the same gene(s) that control schizophrenia, that outweighs the disadvantage of schizophrenia.

Homosexuality is interesting from this perspective too - common enough that evolution has to be selecting for it, yet basically fatal to reproduction, so what are the benefits that evolution is selecting for? Is it advantageous to groups, or maybe the same genes confer an individual benefit to non-homosexuals?

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1. KittenInABox ◴[29 Jun 25 18:08 UTC] No.44415065[source]▶
> Homosexuality is interesting from this perspective too - common enough that evolution has to be selecting for it,

Are we sure this is the case? I think it's more like homosexuality isn't extremely selected against on a population level. Evolution doesn't really select for, more like evolution is a process in which least-viable-specimens are killed off for their environments. It could very well be that a small number of homosexual specimens are simply irrelevant to evolutionary fitness.