Evolutionary biologist William R. Rice critiqued the FBOE hypothesis shortly prior to the publication of this study. According to Rice, it wouldn’t take long for a modifier to evolve to prevent the maternal immune response:
“why would over 200 million years since the origin of mammals not be enough to evolve some modifiers preventing very costly neg- ative immune reaction of the female body to such a routine and unavoidable event as pregnancy with a male fetus (50% of all pregnancies)?”
Rice has a competing hypothesis which links male homosexuality to sexually antagonistic epimarks. Who knows if it pans out. I know epigenetic inheritance is quite controversial (although Rice told me the mechanism he implicates is less controversial than the blogs suggest). His hypothesis makes sense in that it provides a non-gentic mechanism controlling sensitivity to prenatal hormones: gay male fetuess are thought to fail to erase epimarks from their mothers, meaning their brains are buffered against the effects of masculinizing androgens.
Interesting tidbit.
Evolutionary biologist William R. Rice critiqued the FBOE hypothesis shortly prior to the publication of this study. According to Rice, it wouldn’t take long for a modifier to evolve to prevent the maternal immune response:
Rice has a competing hypothesis which links male homosexuality to sexually antagonistic epimarks. Who knows if it pans out. I know epigenetic inheritance is quite controversial (although Rice told me the mechanism he implicates is less controversial than the blogs suggest). His hypothesis makes sense in that it provides a non-gentic mechanism controlling sensitivity to prenatal hormones: gay male fetuess are thought to fail to erase epimarks from their mothers, meaning their brains are buffered against the effects of masculinizing androgens.