Hi, AiG.
AiG writes:
...this definition [of "daughter"] specifies "daughter" to be the entire descendent entity, not just the first descendent cell produced (with the exception of single celled life forms).
Any way you go with this, you're splitting hairs. Asexual reproduction is messy. Monozygotic twins aren't formed by budding, but by fission. As such, neither resulting embryo really came before the other, so neither can be considered the parent of the other.
So, it would be more accurate to call them both "grand-daughters," with the "daughter" being no longer existent.
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AiG writes:
It leads to the concept of all of humanity, from its earliest members to the present, as a form of integrated ooze on the face of the earth. It is estimated that the total number of humans that have ever been born is about 100 billion. Each human has approximately 100 trillion cells. Thus, this ooze reproduces almost exclusively by asexual binary fission with only an infrequent incidence of horizontal gene transfer- at an substantially rate than the incidence of gene transfer observed in bacteria.
First, did you mean to say "...substantially
lower rate..." or "...substantially
higher rate..."? You kind of skipped a word there.
Second, it does kind of turn into a bizarre worldview, doesn't it? Factor in organ transplants and chimeras, and you turn normal, everyday humans into something really creepy!
To me, this is what makes abortion such a confusing thing: like everything in religion, it's just about drawing a line and asserting that the line actually represents an important distinction. It's confusing enough to me that I don't think it's appropriate for one specific opinion on the subject to dominate.
That's kind of the whole point behind the "pro-choice" argument, isn't it?
-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.
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