chadn737

From the perspective of Evolution there are tradeoffs between sexual and asexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction allows recombination to occur, creating new combinations of beneficial alleles while allowing harmful mutations to be unlinked and purged. Plasmodium has a life cycle where it reproduces asexually in humans, but undergoes sexual reproduction in mosquitos. Not all single celled organisms reproduce asexually. Many Eukaryotic single celled organisms have a sexual reproductive cycle, even yeast.

How is it that in five pages of replies on this topic I couldn't find a single mention of Hamilton? If anything annoys me about the Selfish Gene, its that Dawkins is credited with the ideas of others simply for having come up with a clever analogy.

I disagree with the assertion that genetics is so dependent upon environment. It really depends on the specific trait. Of course if you are developing under conditions of starvation you will not reach your full potential....but unless you live in the 3rd world, thats really not a major factor. There is a reason the heritability of IQ is so much higher in developed nations like the US....such environmental factors are a lot less variable and extreme and the majority of people probably have the ability for their genetic potential to be realized. I think people in this thread are way underestimating the role of genetics and overestimating the role of environment.