Sunday 1 July 2012

Why Bother With Sex?

I would never think of the phrase ‘why bother’ in the same line of thought as sex, but I am a perv. It seems that some people are holier than me and they do. I was searching for articles about food in South Asia on JSTOR when I bumped into this article about sex and evolution titled “Why Bother?”[1]

In the essay Mr. Charlesworth writes: The early fathers of Christian Church [anyone could have guessed they would come up in this essay] were sorely troubled by the question of why god had not provided human beings with “some harmless [emphasis provided] mode of vegetation” with which to propogate themselves.

They were sorely troubled. Poking young boys leaves you sore. I will agree that many of them wanted to go to all-male orgies, but I will not agree, and I know this for sure, they were not vegetationarian. That is just a mis-print or confusing it with priests of hindu or some strange religion like that.

If you hadn’t guessed it yet, sex is the most prevalent mode of reproduction in all multicellular animals. And plants. There are very few plants (<0.1%) and animals (only a few dozen species) that reproduce without having some fun, on the way to leaving the babies with the mothers.

Most asexual species seem very recent in evolution, only a few have had long enough time to diversify. Most celebrated of these are Bdelloid Rotifer. Yeah. They are celebrated. That’s the kind of parties they go to: vegetationarian ones. Poor Rotters, even dung beetles got a more exciting deal.

Now Mr. Charlesworth is not very original in asking- why should there be any males? This question may send a wave of happiness down some types of feminists, most married women, and all lezzies. Why don’t females just re-produce exact replicas of themselves, instead of, for example having males to interfere in the matter of exact replicas? Imagine that scenario. No more “you are as lazy as your father” talks. And complete accountability of genes. No more “who taught you to act like that, not me!”

So Mr Charlesworth… he wants me to call him Brian. So Brian explains why should this (no males) have happened, or could have happened very easily. If there was a mutation in a female that they could reproduce asexually, mathematically they would very quickly over take the population of sexual females. Especially if the mutation was happening on Halle Berry.  One Halle Berry for each male within a few generations! Bye bye wife! But then Helle Berry would not need males for reproduction. Only for fun.

If that can happen so easily why hasn’t it happened in the billion years of evolution of life?

Wait, these are your choices:
     Because god created us, evolution is a farce
     Because the mutation happened on the Ms. Dis-sexy and Obnoxious!
     Because we are the 99%
     It depends

If you chose any of the above. you are wrong. Yes, it does not even depend.

You see, if a species inbreeds, it needs a long time to diversify. It has to wait for the bolt of lightening or the spider bite or the uranium exposure, for many generations. In the meanwhile they go on breeding with less efficiency and digging their own grave.

The other day I was on a porn website and one f$%&-ing stupid advertisement there said: “Still watching porn? Get laid tonight.” That really turned me off. But that is not what they mean when they say Inbreeding Depression. That would be erectile dysfun.. anyway.

Even as early as Charles Darwin, evolutionary scientists have noted that when species inbreed they produce less efficient offspring. Babies that have less seeds less tolerant of the changes in environment etc. That is how they produced the depressed kings and queens of Europe. And suicide bombers.

A big advantage of sexual reproduction is variability. Other than cloud mirrors in domestic arguments about whose genes lead to self-destructive behavior in a child, variability also affords a larger chance of survival when the adverse circumstances strike. In long summers without food, in floods, in sudden temperature changes due to earthquakes or volcanic dust, more variation meant that at least some individuals of the species will survive and go on.
 
Homo Sapiens have survived because of diversity! As a species we should celebrate diversity because diversity has sponsored us the tickets to the fair. And since I have done a great job of convincing you to bother with sex, put up a great performance about the way we got here at every opportunity!

Still watching porn? Get laid tonight!



[1] Charlesworth, B. (Spring 2007). Why Bother. Daedalus, 136(2), pp. 37-47.

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