From: Alejandro Dubrovsky (e9328940@student.uq.edu.au)
Date: Wed Dec 17 1997 - 17:44:56 MST
On Wed, 17 Dec 1997, Berrie Staring wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Why (leave just pure coincidence out for now)
> do we need sex to spread our genes?
> Wouldn't it be easier if we could all make a child?
> without the sex. I mean why didn't the two
> chemicals to trigger this stay together..........
> >From the selfish gene point of view, it would double
> the "people" who w(c)ould spread the code.
Sex is not needed. Most organisms still reproduce asexually, but the ones
that did turn to sexual reproduction evolved much quicker due to the
mixing of genes, that's why most "higher" organisms reproduce sexually.
(BTW this is not really backed up by "The Selfish Gene" which has the
following to say about it (p43: "...What is the good of sex? This is an
extremely difficult question for the evolutionist to answer. Most serious
attempts to answer it involve sophisticated mathematical reasoning. I am
frankly going to evade it except to say one thing..." Then he goes on to
explain that "one thing" as being that sex helps the accumulation of good
genes.)
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