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Author Topic:   The Evolution of Sex
Tanypteryx
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Posts: 4344
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 5.9


Message 6 of 15 (892453)
03-07-2022 3:17 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by dwise1
03-07-2022 2:39 PM


dwise1 writes:
Let's parse and unpack that claim piece by piece:
BSer writes:
If an unintelligent living organism came out of nature's goo ...
"unintelligent"/"intelligent"? Who the f*ck cares? That has absolutely nothing to do with sexual reproduction. Not to mention that the organism that you are positing would not have used sexual reproduction!
This makes my laugh when ever I read it. My mind keeps seeing it as "intelligent" rather than unintelligent. And "coming out of the goo, or slime, or pond scum, or mud reminds me of 2 of my female dragonfly hunting friends in a jungle pond in Costa Rica. A group of us were staying at La Selva Research Station where they have miles of trails through the rainforest that are "paved" with flat concrete slabs to keep people from getting stuck in the mud.
Anyway my friends were in this muddy pond that was 2-3 feet deep dredging for dragonfly nymphs as well as photographing adults, including an undescribed and unnamed species. The sides of the pond were steep and slippery and both ladies were covered in mud as they tried to climb out. Four or five guys came along and the ladies asked for a net handle to be lowered to help them climb out and once they reached the guys one of them said, "OK, which of you are our prom dates?" I was on the other side of the pond and laughed so hard I almost fell in.
Pond scum is always a good one, since it is already composed of living organisms.

What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python

One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie

If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy

The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq


This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by dwise1, posted 03-07-2022 2:39 PM dwise1 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by AZPaul3, posted 03-07-2022 4:37 PM Tanypteryx has replied
 Message 9 by dwise1, posted 03-07-2022 5:42 PM Tanypteryx has not replied

  
Tanypteryx
Member
Posts: 4344
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 5.9


Message 11 of 15 (892460)
03-07-2022 6:20 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Taq
03-07-2022 5:28 PM


There are unicellular organisms that reproduce sexually. Unicellular yeasts can make themselves into a gamete and join their nucleus with a neighbor.
The first ones I remember seeing as a kid was Paramecium. I had a colony for several years. Conjugation was quite common.
However, sexual reproduction is still a derived feature. The basal characteristic is simple cloning.
One of my favorite organisms when I was a kid were Hydras. I could find them in almost every scoop with my dipnet, but had to wait to get home and put all the pond scum in a jar or aquarium, before I could see them. They are very simple multicellular organisms that reproduce by cloning or sexually.
From Wikipedia:
quote:
When food is plentiful, many Hydra reproduce asexually by budding. The buds form from the body wall, grow into miniature adults and break away when mature.
When a hydra is well fed, a new bud can form every two days.[10] When conditions are harsh, often before winter or in poor feeding conditions, sexual reproduction occurs in some Hydra. Swellings in the body wall develop into either ovaries or testes. The testes release free-swimming gametes into the water, and these can fertilize the egg in the ovary of another individual. The fertilized eggs secrete a tough outer coating, and, as the adult dies (due to starvation or cold), these resting eggs fall to the bottom of the lake or pond to await better conditions, whereupon they hatch into nymph Hydra. Some Hydra species, like Hydra circumcincta and Hydra viridissima, are hermaphrodites[11] and may produce both testes and ovaries at the same time.
Many members of the Hydrozoa go through a body change from a polyp to an adult form called a medusa, which is usually the life stage where sexual reproduction occurs, but Hydra do not progress beyond the polyp phase.[12]
I often find hydras attached to the exoskeletons of dragonfly nymphs. It's a free ride until the nymph molts.

What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python

One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie

If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy

The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq


This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by Taq, posted 03-07-2022 5:28 PM Taq has not replied

  
Tanypteryx
Member
Posts: 4344
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 5.9


Message 12 of 15 (892461)
03-07-2022 6:32 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by AZPaul3
03-07-2022 4:37 PM


Umm, pond scum. I feel like Homer hovering over a donut.
Pond scum is always a good one, since it is already composed of living organisms.
But it makes an excellent analogy, yes?
Indeed.
AZPaul3 writes:
There are so many hypotheses of abiogenesis. I love them all. Each has an appeal. Though sea vents seem to provide a powerfully viable platform, many versions of the pond scum analogy are also strongly viable. Little pools of chemistry, many only a few cm in extent. Scattered by the trillions all over the slowly cooling planet for millions of years. Constantly wetting and drying, building up, if not a scummy foam, at least a concentrated brew of ions and the natural, normal, Miller–Urey mix of chemical sludge. Pond scum.
There certainly are chemical probabilities in each. I’m thinking, however, that the numbers of events over the eons of cooling would be key. Trillions of petri dishes in shallow pools across the globe versus a few billion undersea vents. I’m partial to pond scum.
I love them all too, and love every time someone come up with a new hypothesis. Thermal sea vents seem like strong contenders, but we will probably never know where the very first life arose because it had millions of years to adapt to all those different petri dishes. I still keep jars of pond scum on my window sills.

What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python

One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie

If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy

The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq


This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by AZPaul3, posted 03-07-2022 4:37 PM AZPaul3 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by dwise1, posted 03-07-2022 8:55 PM Tanypteryx has not replied

  
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