Sex: do we really need it?

Australian Broadcasting Corporation Science ^ | Tuesday, 8 July 2003 | Wilson da Silva in Melbourne

[I_dmc]

Sex: do we really need it?

Wilson da Silva in Melbourne

ABC Science Online

 

 

Birds do it, bees do it, humans do it - but nobody knows why sex evolved at all, the world congress of genetics heard in Melbourne today.

"The evolution of sex has presented a paradox to evolutionary biology for over a century," said Associate Professor Sally Otto, an evolutionary biologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, to delegates attending the 19th International Congress of Genetics.

"It's known there are a lot of costs to reproducing sexually. Why make sons and males, if you could just produce females that were able to reproduce by themselves? That's a division of resources into two sexes that seems unnecessary," she said.

Not only does this seem to waste resources, the whole process is prone to failure. There's the risk of not finding a mate, and the risk of getting a disease during mating. There's also a more subtle risk: if an individual reaches reproduction age and finds a mate, it is a successful genotype - a tried and true model of a species. But then that individual mixes their genotype with a mate, with no guarantee that the mixture is going to be any better.

[Jay D. Dyson]

Only one sperm (the fastest and the strongest) will make it.

Well, actually each of us is the result of some slacker that got there after the initial faster ones wore down the coating of the ova. The fastest ones got tired doing all the work to let us slower fresh arrivals scoot in.

Hm. That's a new one. All of the data I'd seen (which is admittedly years old now) indicated that sperm operated in a pitbull-like fashion and didn't give up once they'd latched on.

'Course, there's also been discoveries of "killer sperm" that make their (albeit short) living out of attacking and slowing down other sperm en route to the egg. Not quite sure what to make of that...

-Jay

[MHGinTN]

They'll be changing their name soon, to 'The Parthenogenites' ... it's their arrogance, don'tcha know!

[Jay D. Dyson]

The media is constantly telling us that women are better creatures.

But we are...everyone knows you have to endure at least one failed experiment before you can achieve perfection : )

I have to concur. Women are indeed the better of the species. They look better, they smell better, they feel better... oy vey! And who's trying to say that sex isn't necessary?! RAR.

-Jay

[Saturnalia]

Bump to mark this thread until I find my notes.

[FeliciaCat]

Sex: do we really need it?

Yes. Lots of it ;)

[wardaddy]

More whining from ugly women who had issues with daddy.

[ColdSteelTalon]

I have the ANSWER. Because that's the way God wanted it !!!!

But I suppose that people will not satified with that.

[F-117A]

GENDERCIDE WATCH seeks to confront acts of gender-selective mass killing around the world. We believe that such atrocities against ordinary men and women constitute one of humanity's worst blights, and one of its greatest challenges in the new millennium.

[vin-one]

I'm with you, on this one......
once a week is not enough..............

[sit-rep]

The author obviously did not have a decent relationship with their father... If they had a father at all. To write something like this, tells me they have issues!

[sit-rep]

I cannot believe you beat me to it!!!

[Cobra64]

Is it still considered sex if you are alone?

That's a good question for the Sinkmeister Slick-Willie waxing his willie in the Oral Office.

[najida]

Is this a trick question?

[Jeff Gordon]

It did not EVOLVE --- God CREATED Adam & Eve

And shortly thereafter, God created the first Creationist and named him Cane.

[wardaddy]

great minds think alike!

[frodolives]

Well, that's not what the neighbors say- the ones with the herd of sheep.

[Billthedrill]

You may need to choose a more appropriate screen name.

"Only Until I Need Glasses" was already taken. (It really was).

[Billthedrill]

The fleecy little tramps are liars.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

LOL!! I think you nailed it!

[XJarhead]

If sex evolved, how could it evolve without some means of transmissible genetic variation?

Mutations. You're going to get way more variation over time with sexual transmission of variation than you would likely get from having to rely on mutations of self-replicating organizisms. Plus, a successful mutation will spread far more rapidly where there is sex than where there is none. If there is a successful mutation of one self-replicating "female", that mutation can be passed on only to that female's offspring. But if you have a successful mutation in a male, that success can be passed on to a much larger number of females.