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Why Sex? Biologists Find New Explanations

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Why Sex? Biologists Find New Explanations

#101

Post by Supermancho »

limomium wrote: post #98
Supermancho wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sexual reproduction can involve an asexual (which would be hemaphroditic) partner.

Why would you evolve the necessary organs to sexually reproduce with your self, with no one else around?

Often times sexual organs are multipurpose. It's likely a genetic mutation that allows for sexual reproduction, as with all structural advances. I might end up with a functioning probiscus near my gamete sack and if I end up bumping into my fellow eukaryotes, that's just how it goes.

Re: Why Sex? Biologists Find New Explanations

#102

Post by undersuit »

Suncho wrote: post #45
itchyjunk wrote: post #20

I like how the article starts but I think it got lost a bit in hypothetical and anecdotes towards the end. Not holding it against the article though. As the article rightly points out, anything involving sex drags in biases as well. I wonder how convergent evolution [0] fits into this? Maybe one form of reproduction leaves a large niche open for another type of reproduction to fill in. Could it be that there was sexu…

> Could it be that there was sexual reproduction first and asexual reproduction came later? Unlikely. You can't mate with copies of yourself unless there are already multiple copies of yourself floating around. I like the story they present in the article. For simple organisms, it's fairly inexpensive to let defective individuals die off. As organisms get more complex, it starts to become more costly to allow defects…

>Unlikely. You can't mate with copies of yourself unless there are already multiple copies of yourself floating around.

We don't know if early replicators were inside lipid membranes or not. If they were in the goop they'd be floating with their clones and siblings.

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