Problems with Mutation and the Evolution of the Sexes

No, there's a point.If you're using the wrong words, then you can't look things up.For example, I just looked in the back of my biology textbook --- 1200 pages long, and the word "gender" isn't in the index. There's plenty about sex. This is because, yes, words can vary in meaning, but biologists always say "sex", never "gender", when what they mean is "sex".You'd find the same if you tried searching PubMed for papers that address your questions.We just get tetchy, tell you you're using the word wrong, and then answer the question anyway. An index or a database search will not get testy, but in other ways they will be less forgiving, since you won't be able to find what you're looking for.

I think you can.Sexual reproduction is where two organisms combine forces to produce further organisms sharing a mixture of their genotypes.Sexes is where you have a system of two mating strains, with mating only between the two strains, not within strains, such that one mating strain (males) contributes a smaller gamete.It is reasonable to discuss how to get from one to the other, and I think this is Lyston's question --- at least, he seemed reasonably satisfied with my answer.

These are three rather different cases, and the change from creationism to evolution is a fourth. I'd be interested to discuss the subject, but it would be wildly off-topic here. Well, I see your point. And yet an argument which can be used against any branch of scientific knowledge with equal force seems to be an ineffective argument against any particular branch of science.If your point might be restated as "since science changes, how can I trust any of it?" then I would reply that by some means or other you do. You are fairly sure of the existence of cells, for example. I suppose in principle tomorrow they could turn out to be a big hoax by biologists, or we could pull our helmets off and discover we've all been living in the matrix ...Of course, some science is solider than other bits. Our knowledge of evolution ranges from the utterly solid to "We don't know, can we have ten million dollars to research that? While you wait, here is a handful of plausible guesses and some light music". To determine which bits are solid and which are not, you have to look at the particular facts that bear on the particular question.---Thought for the day:"When people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together." --- Isaac Asimov

What a virus does is force its host to produce copies of the virus. The host's genes don't get passed on the the viruses produced, so the viruses produced by the hose can't be considered the offspring of the host. That's two questions. Simpler, yes. Like viruses, no.

It's always nice to know that someone's listening.---Eyes ... oh good.* rubs hands *See you on the other thread.

And we also know that detrimental mutations are less likely to undergo "consecutive replications of that genetic information", 'cos of the law of natural selection.Maybe there's only one beneficial mutation for every thousand harmful mutations, but it's the beneficial mutation that's going to spread through the gene pool.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

[qs]//Have a look at the sex-lifes of ciliates such as Paramecium. Is that sexual reproduction? Are they hermaphrodites? Do they have sexes? Note that they are single-celled.
Now consider the F plasmid in E. Coli ...//Alright, so why were they left behind in the wake of mass evolution?[/quote]Paramecium and E. coli are still flourishing: there are more E. coli in your gut than there are humans on this planet. They were not left behind.There is also no such thing as "mass evolution". One lineage evolving in a certain way doesn't magically make all the other lineages evolve in the same way.In particular, Paramecium and E. coli have evolved alternatives to sexual reproduction as we understand it.By the way, did you do what my post suggested and look them up? I bet you didn't.

All of it. Which part of it go you object to? Yes, and yes.Also, geneticists agree with what we say, or to be more accurate, we agree with them. So when you find that all the geneticists in the world agree with a statement about genetics, and it makes you, a non-geneticist, laugh, then perhaps you should spend a few minutes thinking about who's wrong about genetics: you or the geneticists.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

And yet, just as you can't find any geneticists who agree with you about genetics, a subject that geneticists have studied and you haven't, so also you can't find any professors of thermodynamics to agree with you about thermodynamics, which is also a subject that you also know damn all about 'cos of never having studied it.

What gave you this strange idea?Are you once more trying to talk about a subject of which you know nothing? Bacteria, in the absence of genetic information telling them not to be bacteria, would be bacteria.If you meant something else by your enquiry, I should tell you frankly that your method of putting questions is distinctly opaque. Knowing what you're talking about might help you here. Those are all English words, and yet the order in which you have put them together conveys no meaning.

You also need to find out what "recessive" and "dominant" mean before you try to lecture us on genetics.You may also want to read up on the concept of "natural selection", it's fascinating.