In article <01bc43c1$209adb60$864da1ce at koller.erols.com>,
Mike Koller <koller at erols.com> wrote:
>> > The fact is this: sex is *not* a problem for evolutionary biology.
>> > Theories regarding why sex persists (a separate question from how sex
>> > arose - which is also not a problem) are covered by any decent
>> > college-level
>> > evolution text.
>> >
>> > Rich Kliman
>> > Dept. of Biology
>> > Radford University
>> > *standard disclaimer*
>Yup. I'm taking biology 1 and it's right there in plain english. Not hard
>to grasp or understand. It makes a whole lotta sense, scientifcally
>speaking of course.
"It is worth noting that Maynard Smith's argument invalidates the earliest
genetic argument for the evolution of recombination, that advanced by East
(1918). That argument is also the one commonly found in textbooks, which
tend to be a bit out of date (in this case, by over 50 years)."
J. Felsenstein, "Sex and the Evolution of Recombination" in THE EVOLUTION
OF SEX, R.E. Michod and B.R. Levins eds. Sinauer Associates 1988 (p.78)
"We have the anomolous situation that a detailed population genetic analysis
reveals not only that the standard explanation for the evolution of
recombination will not work, but also that there is a good evolutionary
reason for believing that modifiers will be selected to eliminate
recombination." (ibid, p.79)
Sex is very definitely a problem for evolutionary biology in spite of what
the introductory biology textbooks say.
Larry Moran
