Why We Have Sex: It's Cleansing

LiveScience.com ^ | 3/2/06 | Ker Than

[anymouse]

I guess we'll need a shower after this thread gets going. ;)

[anymouse]

I'm sure you will have some inappropriate comments for this thread. :)

[ShadowDancer]

That's as good as an excuse as any.

[Tijeras_Slim]

The new work could help test a hypothesis first proposed nearly 20 years ago, stating that sex evolved as a way to purge harmful mutations from a population.

Good thing I'm in my 40's.

[Zuben Elgenubi]

This writer has it absolutely wrong. Sex was invented to keep women in their place.

[ducks to avoid frying pan]

[UB355]

Or as my ex-wife would say "Why have sex"

[corkoman]

Somehow I always seem to feel a bit dirty afterwards...

[Dan(9698)]

...concentrating many harmful mutations into single individuals...

That is why the homosexuals should not be married.

Leave them single so they can fulfill their function.

[colorado tanker]

Hey, baby, in the mood for a little negative epistasis tonight?

[ShadowDancer]

In case you hadn't noticed, sex isn't just happening between married people. Kind of screws up your theory.

[mouse_35]

You must be doing it right...

[Tijeras_Slim]

Sex was invented to keep women in their place.

In charge?

[D.P.Roberts]

"Hey Honey, wanna get clean?"

[Hoodlum91]

Hehehe...

That says a lot!

[Billthedrill]

"Most mutations are actually harmful, so anything that helps populations get rid of their harmful mutations is going to be important,"

I've heard of some hokey pickup lines in my time but this one takes the cake.

[Larry Lucido]

Over here, folks.

My theory: Female microorganisms foresaw the advent of the VCRs and oil changes and needed to evolve an organism with at least a modicum of analytical ability.

[plain talk]

Turns out sex might have evolved as a way to concentrate lots of harmful mutations into individual organ

Correction. ... might have been designed as a way ...

[steveo]

According to their model, detailed in the March 2 issue of the journal Nature, negative epistasis is a natural byproduct of sex itself.

Computer model... sounds reasonable.

[demkicker]

In charge?

ROTFLMAO!!!

[NormsRevenge]

This hypothesis, called the "mutational deterministic hypothesis," is controversial though, because it assumes that single mutations by themselves are only slightly harmful, while a combination of many mutations together is much more damaging. Scientists call this phenomenon "negative epistasis."

If negative epistasis were true, it would provide a powerful explanation for why sex has managed to persist for so long despite its numerous costs. But the phenomenon has yet to be widely demonstrated in nature and scientists have yet to figure out how such a thing evolved in the first place.

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a new computer model, cool.. this many help explain carville and matlin,, bill and hil and webb

some may well be pre-disposed to breed themselves out of existence. Good old Mother Nature.