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Why Sex? Biologists Find New Explanations

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Re: Why Sex? Biologists Find New Explanations

#81

Post by globular-toast »

throwaway6575 wrote: post #59
globular-toast wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I've actually worked in bioinformatics and with biologists who have studied sexual species their entire life and my top-level comment was one of the ones that got buried. The main thing to learn from this is you can't really talk about this stuff because people don't want certain things to be true. Biologists tended to talk about this stuff openly with me after a few drinks. They dare not speak about it most…

Lol I've heard so many times about the conspiracy of biologists who are afraid to "tell the truth" about sex differences. Everyone is like Damore, cowing in front of the SJW crowd and afraid to be fired4truth. The reality is much more tame. The crux of the matter (and potential controversy) is not about sex differences in plants or C. elegans. Most biologists I've met who study algae or polar bears usually limit thei…

Who said anything about humans? My original comment certainly didn't.

Re: Why Sex? Biologists Find New Explanations

#82

Post by globular-toast »

throwaway6575 wrote: post #59
globular-toast wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I've actually worked in bioinformatics and with biologists who have studied sexual species their entire life and my top-level comment was one of the ones that got buried. The main thing to learn from this is you can't really talk about this stuff because people don't want certain things to be true. Biologists tended to talk about this stuff openly with me after a few drinks. They dare not speak about it most…

Lol I've heard so many times about the conspiracy of biologists who are afraid to "tell the truth" about sex differences. Everyone is like Damore, cowing in front of the SJW crowd and afraid to be fired4truth. The reality is much more tame. The crux of the matter (and potential controversy) is not about sex differences in plants or C. elegans. Most biologists I've met who study algae or polar bears usually limit thei…

I don't think you know what a conspiracy is. People don't speak up precisely because they are alone and don't want to be shunned by the echo chamber. If you've heard about it so many times, why do you think you know best and deny the observations of others?

Re: Why Sex? Biologists Find New Explanations

#83

Post by Supermancho »

ben_w wrote: post #14
raducu wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it a common known fact that while average IQ is the same for males and females, male IQ varies more and hence there are more male idiots as well as more male geniuses? I'm sure you can google the IQ variance stuff. I'm also willing to bet the height distribution, libido, interest in hobbies, single-mindedness vary a lot more in males than in females. Politically correctness aside, wouldn't it make perfect sense…

> Isn't it a common known fact that while average IQ is the same for males and females, male IQ varies more and hence there are more male idiots as well as more male geniuses? I had heard this as a kid, but I haven’t seen anything to back it up recently that didn’t turn out to be wishful thinking by the author/reposter. > wouldn't it make perfect sense that the sex that produces more gametes in a day than whole count…

> I don’t see why the number of gametes is relevant, as the average number of viable offspring is necessarily the same.

Biologically, there are usually a complex history of reasons for an exhibited trait. It's important to remember tha sperm carry either a Y OR X gene expression, which inherently leads to more variability.

Human ovum undergo some mixing (https://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/odds-making-id...) but Human sperm are both more varied and larger quantity since they are more complex. The sperm both have to compete with each other and be acceptable by the ovum. -https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4071627/ (etc)

The actual payload of the sperm and ovum are roughly the same at ~8 million combinations for 8x8 million combinations for the fertilized ovum. -https://www.biology.iupui.edu/biocourses/N100H/ch9meiosis.ht...

So, the question implied by your casual comment is, what is the purpose of the multitude of sperm?

Is a multitude of sperm an evolutionary dead end (inefficiency)? Maybe, but there's no going back. The sperm faces quite a bit of natural resistance along it's fertilization journey. It's necessary, probably along the lines of the morphologically convoluted duck penises.

Is a multitude of sperm otherwise useful? Yes. It ensures a limit to the number of variations that can be passed on. If there are too many variations maybe the flagella will not be as efficient and loses to competition. -https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4242561/

Doss this directly contradict the idea of males having more variability? (posed by the previous paper). No. There are also environmental conditions (including seminal fluid involvement), temperature and the male/female bodies. Ovum are subjected to and less affected by environment than sperm, which likely is the source of greater variation overall. -https://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/1/107

There is also the nature of the disposability of sperm and the likelihood that there is less strict quality control, for a lack of better term, since competition solves inefficiencies on production quality. I could find nothing that indicates that this is a specific topic of study.

Re: Why Sex? Biologists Find New Explanations

#84

Post by sdenton4 »

Supermancho wrote: post #80
Suncho wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Asexual reproduction doesn't require copies of "yourself". Plants can self fertilize and they are some of the most complex organisms to do it and you probably know this. Can you rephrase that statement?

I /think/ they're saying that if sexual reproduction came first, you have a pretty basic problem: where's the second individual that the first sexually reproducing entity mates with?

Re: Why Sex? Biologists Find New Explanations

#85

Post by greglindahl »

hammock wrote: post #36
Zaak wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is meiosis and mitosis the only two way to reproduce? Well, from a high-level view the only way a cell can make more cells is to divide, and if it divides it either makes a copy of its genetic material first, or gives half of it to each daughter cell. So in that sense, they're the only two ways possible. From a more detailed view, I wonder if the machinery of meiosis is evolutionarily the same in every sexually-rep…

>Well, from a high-level view the only way a cell can make more cells is to divide, and if it divides it either makes a copy of its genetic material first, or gives half of it to each daughter cell. So in that sense, they're the only two ways possible. Ignoring the idea of three-way (or more) genetic swaps, which would be like another type of meiosis, what if there were other ways? What if there was a "carbon copy" o…

You might want to read upon horizontal gene transfer. But it's not reproduction.

Re: Why Sex? Biologists Find New Explanations

#86

Post by philipkglass »

luckylion wrote: post #79
throwaway6575 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol I've heard so many times about the conspiracy of biologists who are afraid to "tell the truth" about sex differences. Everyone is like Damore, cowing in front of the SJW crowd and afraid to be fired4truth. The reality is much more tame. The crux of the matter (and potential controversy) is not about sex differences in plants or C. elegans. Most biologists I've met who study algae or polar bears usually limit thei…

> "most of what works in other species doesn't work in humans" (see: 99% of drug trials) Isn't the point of doing animal trials that they are "close enough" for most things to deliver good results? I.e. "if you can't do it in mice, dogs and pigs with your proposed medication, you probably won't be able to do it in humans". They're close enough that xenotransplantation is actively considered. "Humans are so special, e…

We haven't found anything better to replace animal trials yet, but they aren't close enough to deliver good results.

Animal trials precede the first (Phase I) clinical trials in people.

93% of drugs that make it past animal trials and into Phase I clinical trials fail to make it all the way to final approval:

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/05/09/th...

It's also not clear how many drug candiates we're missing out on because animal models give false positives for toxicity in humans. Compounds that are extremely poisonous to experimental animals may be tolerated much better in humans.

Humans survive exposure to TCDD at levels that would be more than 50 times higher than the lethal dose in guinea pigs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodiox...

Acetaminophen is a deadly poison to cats even at modest doses.

It's impractical and unethical to try novel druglike compounds in humans right away, so we may not know how many premature rejections come from animal models until/unless we're able to grow whole human organs for drug testing.

Re: Why Sex? Biologists Find New Explanations

#87

Post by jackcosgrove »

> Nedelcu and her colleagues found that if you alleviate their physiological stress — by providing them with a boost of antioxidants — they don’t have sex.

Well that explains a lot.

In all seriousness, I find that the idea in the article raises another question. If mating can increase individual fitness by sharing something, how is that explanation of sex different than being a member of a social group? Social species take the idea even further. Is sex simply the building block for social behaviors, and more sophisticated adaptations beyond sex are now available?

Re: Why Sex? Biologists Find New Explanations

#88

Post by hammock »

greglindahl wrote: post #85
hammock wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Well, from a high-level view the only way a cell can make more cells is to divide, and if it divides it either makes a copy of its genetic material first, or gives half of it to each daughter cell. So in that sense, they're the only two ways possible. Ignoring the idea of three-way (or more) genetic swaps, which would be like another type of meiosis, what if there were other ways? What if there was a "carbon copy" o…

You might want to read upon horizontal gene transfer. But it's not reproduction.

Yes- this + mitosis of the new genetic code at sufficient scale would approximate a new form of reproduction.. there could be some organism that relies on it

Re: Why Sex? Biologists Find New Explanations

#89

Post by Supermancho »

sdenton4 wrote: post #84
Supermancho wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unlikely. You can't mate with copies of yourself unless there are already multiple copies of yourself floating around. Asexual reproduction doesn't require copies of "yourself". Plants can self fertilize and they are some of the most complex organisms to do it and you probably know this. Can you rephrase that statement?

I /think/ they're saying that if sexual reproduction came first, you have a pretty basic problem: where's the second individual that the first sexually reproducing entity mates with?

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

Re: Why Sex? Biologists Find New Explanations

#90

Post by throwaway6575 »

luckylion wrote: post #79
throwaway6575 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol I've heard so many times about the conspiracy of biologists who are afraid to "tell the truth" about sex differences. Everyone is like Damore, cowing in front of the SJW crowd and afraid to be fired4truth. The reality is much more tame. The crux of the matter (and potential controversy) is not about sex differences in plants or C. elegans. Most biologists I've met who study algae or polar bears usually limit thei…

> "most of what works in other species doesn't work in humans" (see: 99% of drug trials) Isn't the point of doing animal trials that they are "close enough" for most things to deliver good results? I.e. "if you can't do it in mice, dogs and pigs with your proposed medication, you probably won't be able to do it in humans". They're close enough that xenotransplantation is actively considered. "Humans are so special, e…

"It works in a close animal" is a necessary though far from sufficient condition for "it" working in humans. The point of doing animal trials is to filter out drugs that don't even fulfill that condition. Look at the "in mice" twitter account. How many potential Alzheimer treatments and cures for cancer have been touted in the last decade that proved effective in mice? How many of them turned out to be promising in humans? You need to keep that ratio in mind whenever you feel like conjecturing something.

And keep in mind we're talking here about behavioral differences driven by possibly the most complex organ that diverged the most from other animals'.

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