Mundane conjecturing about evolution (long)

[Arachne]

With regards to discussing this article on aim with Mboy "Elephantine errors from Ray Comfort: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/03/elephantine_errors_from_ray_co.php#more
The article is a response to Ray’s inability to grasp the idea that, no, females did not evolve from males.

As I’m reading the article, I write out a small thought experiment:

I think the argument could be dispelled with a simple: sexual reproduction evolved because it was a viable strategy. How it probably went down is that one, or more probably a few, asexually reproducing organisms, over time, selected for a trait called [what is that thing where single cell organisms bump into one another and exchange genetic information? not osmosis]. This might have led to a more genetically diverse [and perhaps healthier] population. Perhaps small random mutations in this population of single celled organisms would have devoloped specific structures to exchange genetic material, that would eventually separate the population into female and male organisms, probably with a period of hermaphrodism. Maybe that’s how sexual reproduction was selected for, at first. I do know that sexually reproducing organisms can grow many times larger then asexually reproducing organisms - which is not to say that sexually reproducing beings are more sucessful. In fact, if we’re just arguing population, things like bacterium and other single-cells are infinitely more sucessful then sexually reproducing critters. It’s a wonder that sexual reproduction ever evolved in the first place!

I scroll down to the last paragraph of the article, where I read:

As for the appearance of those male and female sexes, their origin lies far back in the pre-Cambrian. The differences arose gradually. The distant ancestor of all those animals Ray rattled off, and including insects, clams, squid, starfish, and leeches, was a pre-Cambrian worm, and it was most likely a hermaphrodite, producing both sperm and eggs. The sexual differences Ray finds so difficult to comprehend arose by progressive specialization: genetic switches that could turn off either male or female gamete production were already present, and some individuals in the population turned off the making of eggs and made sperm, while others did vice versa. It happened in worms, worms that have contemporary relatives that live fruitful lives of sexual ambiguity.

Which made me pretty happy - I mean, I’m a freshman in college with very little background in biology, and I just independently thought out an evolutionary concept - granted I did it with single cell organisms and not worms, but I arrived at the correct conclusion: that sexual reproduction occurred over a long time, via minute random changes.

And then I had another thought - If I could figure that out, then how the heck does Ray Comfort have any sort of a fan base?

[wunderkammer]

@Arachne

And then I had another thought - If I could figure that out, then how the heck does Ray Comfort have any sort of a fan base?

For every smart person who knows that she does not know everything, but knows how to reason, there are scores who seriously overestimate their own intuitive view of the world and dismiss what they don’t immediately understand as idiotic.

They can take comfort in Mr. Comfort’s awful, “common sense” arguments, which are in agreement with their worldview, with nothing to whoosh over their heads or make them pause to think for a moment.

You, on the other hand, would probably enjoy the first few chapters of Matt Ridley’s The Red Queen, where he discusses why two different sexes evolved, rather then all hermaphroditism all the time. It seems like a cool next step if you get at all fired up about the evolution of sex. I, for one, enjoyed it a lot.

[Der_Trihs]

@wunderkammer

You, on the other hand, would probably enjoy the first few chapters of Matt Ridley’s The Red Queen, where he discusses why two different sexes evolved, rather then all hermaphroditism all the time. It seems like a cool next step if you get at all fired up about the evolution of sex. I, for one, enjoyed it a lot.

I second that recommendation; an interesting book.