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Quote by: CrochityOldMan  I already posted this in the Philosphy debate seciont, but figured id also ask in the science forum since it obviously spans both sections.
have wondered about how sex evolved for quite some time, if anyone could shed some light on this issue it would be appreciated, because it seems to be a legitament problem.
According to the current theory of evolution the first organisms reproduced asexually, so at some point organisms must have developed the ability to reproduce sexually. I know there are some explanations at a unicellular level of cells connecting and exchanging DNA, but on a multicellular scale there seems to be a large problem. In order for sexual reproducation to be possible it takes a male and female, so a male and female would have to evolve seperately(while reproducing asexually) to the point where two of these different organisms get together and decide to reproduce. It seems very improbable that two such organism would evolve seperately and in such a compatible way. A completely worthless penis would have too be grown and mainted for generations without haveing a purpose, and then be lucky enough to run into a female that had developed an equally useless organ set over an extended period of time. How is this possible?
I understand that there may be an advantage to sexual reproduction, but even if it can for sure be shown to be advantageous this does not explain how it happened. All traits that evolve are advantageous but not all advantageous traits evolve. Please dont awnser this post by showing how sexual reproduction is advantageous. Instead try and purpose a mechanism for how two sexes could have feasibly evolved. And if it came from a creature that produced both sexually and asexually why would that creature ever lose the ability to reproduce both ways as that would clearly be an advantage over just one or the other. |
Well just taking a couple of moments to think about this I have a possible scenario. I'm ignoring everything up to bacterial conjugation and how that developed but I'm going to start from there. If a bacterium developed a particular set of genes or a gene which allowed it enhanced ability to 'deposit' it's genetic makeup in another bacterium that would basically send it in the direction in forming the male side of sexual dimorphism and a bacterium of the same species of bacterium could develop an ablilty to recieve genes better. With enough random encounters you would get two groups that would be more slightly inclined to be male and another that would be female, eventually this would lead to the development to the X and Y chromosomes. This species would be the first to have male and female traits. Eventually when multi-cellular organisms develop the sexual form of reproduction would become more advantageously for making the larger multicellular organisms. This is all random but isn't that a principle of evolution.