‘Explaining the origin of sex is widely recognized as a major dilemma after 150 years of attempts to answer it by some of the world’s leading evolutionists. Since Darwin revolutionized the world with his theory, this “masterpiece of nature” is acknowledged as one of evolutionists’ most difficult evolutionary problems, second only to the origin-of-life problem.[1]
Sexual differences are widespread in animals, but no single rule explains them.
The dominant theory is that asexual reproduction somehow slowly evolved into sexual reproduction. However, the evidence is both overwhelming, and widely recognized even by evolutionists, that evolution by small steps cannot bridge the transition from asexual to sexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction cannot occur until both functional and compatible male and female reproductive systems exist. If any part of any component does not exist, reproduction will not occur. Nonetheless, evolutionists continue to look for ways to solve the problem of the origin of sex. One current example is a study by Yadav et al.[2] This study, rather than solve the problem, actually illustrates how difficult it is.
Evolutionists not only readily admit that “eukaryotic sexual reproduction is a mystery,” but also that the “ubiquity of eukaryotic sexual reproduction is a mystery.” In other words, the fact that eukaryotic sexual reproduction exists everywhere in life, from invertebrates to vertebrates, from plants to insects and animals must be explained. Furthermore, a variety of very different types of eukaryotic sexual reproduction systems are observed (see list below). For example, fungi “undergo alternative modes of sexual reproduction (unisexual, pseudosexual, and parasexual) in the laboratory and in nature that share features with alternative sexual processes observed in animals and plants (parthenogenesis, hybridogenesis, gynogenesis, and apomixis).”[3]
Most animals, including humans, after birth live out their entire lives and reproduce as either one sex or the other. With some animals, and many plants, a variety of sex types exist. These will now be briefly described to illustrate the problem this poses for evolution.
The Basic Kinds of Sexual Designs
Unisexual refers to an organism that can reproduce without requiring both male and female gametes. Unisexual plants’ flowers contain either stamens or carpels, but not both. Examples in the plant kingdom include papaya, cucumber, maize, tapioca, pumpkin, musk melon, castor bean, birch, pine (using cones), and watermelon.
Bisexual plant flowers contain both stamens and carpels and require both male and female gametes to reproduce. Common examples include rose, sunflower, hibiscus, lily, and mustard. Attempts to determine patterns related to why some plants can reproduce unisexually, while others require bisexual support, have failed.
Simultaneous hermaphroditism exists in a single organism which has both types of reproductive organs when mature. Consequently, they produce both male and female gametes. In simultaneous hermaphrodites, self-fertilization is possible in some species, but absent in others. Examples include vascular plants, worms, snails, slugs, barnacles, bryozoans (moss), and trematodes (flukes).
Sequential hermaphroditism produces eggs (female gametes) and sperm (male gametes) at different stages in their life. The change from one sex to another is a normal event as part of the organism’s reproductive cycle. The change from male to female is called protandry or protandrous hermaphroditism, and from female to male is called protogyny or protogynous hermaphroditism. Sequential hermaphroditism is actually common in many fish, gastropods, and certain plants.
Bidirectional hermaphrodites possess the capacity for sex change in either direction, male to female and female to male, an alternation potentially repeated several times during the organism’s lifetime.
Pseudosexual includes animals that experience a tertiary physical attraction which mimics sexual attraction but no transfer of gametes occurs. The problem with this behavior is that it does not normally involve successful reproduction.[4]
Parasexual reproduction is a system that results in the recombination of genes from different individuals, but does not involve meiosis nor the formation of a zygote by fertilization as in sexual reproduction. The main examples include fungi and many unicellular organisms.[5]
Parthenogenesis, is a form of reproduction in which an egg develops into an embryo without being fertilized by sperm. It usually results in the development of a female; and very rarely males. Rotifers, along with several insect species, including aphids, bees, wasps, and ants can reproduce by parthenogenesis.
Hybridogenesis, also called sexual parasitism, involves the selective transmission of one of the parental genomes, while the other genome is renewed by mating with the corresponding species. [6]
Gynogenesis is a system of asexual reproduction that requires the presence of sperm but not the contribution of its DNA. The paternal DNA dissolves, or is destroyed by another means, before it can fuse with an egg. The egg cell then is able to develop, unfertilized, into an adult using only maternal DNA. Most gynogenesic animals are fish or amphibians. Why this reproductive mode even exists, given that it combines the disadvantages of both asexual and sexual reproduction, remains another unsolved problem in evolutionary biology.[7]
Androgenesis is the male equivalent of gynogenesis, where the father is the sole contributor of DNA. Thus a zygote is produced with only the paternal nuclear genes.[8]
Apomixis is asexual reproduction in which seeds are produced from unfertilized ovules. Examples include the genera Crataegus (hawthorns), Amelanchier (shadbush), Sorbus (rowans and whitebeams), Rubus (brambles or blackberries), Poa (meadow grasses), Nardus stricta (doormatgrass), Hieracium (hawkweeds) and Taraxacum (dandelions).
Attempts to Explain the Variety of Reproductive Methods Fail
In their PNAS paper (ref. 2), the authors attempt to theorize how and why organisms could have evolved so many different systems for mating-type determination. This, they claim, could advance the understanding of the evolution-of-sex problem itself. Actually, their attempt creates additional major difficulties for understanding the evolution of sex. For example, they write:
the systems by which sex is defined are highly diverse and can even differ between evolutionarily closely related species. While the most commonly known form of sex determination involves males and females in animals, eukaryotic microbes can have as many as thousands of different mating types for the same species. Furthermore,… several examples are also present among vertebrates suggesting that alternative modes of sexual reproduction evolved multiple times throughout evolution.[9]
It is widely recognized that the evolution of sex is an enormous problem: “no other problem has sowed as much confusion” as have attempts to explain the origin of sexual reproduction.[10] As Richard Dawkins asked, “why did sex, that bizarre prevision of straightforward replication, ever arise in the first place? … This is an extremely difficult question for evolutionists to answer” which he admitted he was “going to evade” due to “the difficulty which theorists have with explaining the evolution of sex.”[11] The late Lynn Margulis added in the introduction of her book on sex was so difficult that “becoming sexual [beings] is one [topic] which we will try to steer well clear of throughout this book.”[12]
How Yaiv et al., in their PNAS Article Deal with the Origin of Sex Problem
Yaiv et al. proposed that the variety of sex behaviors they documented did not evolve from some hypothetical original sexual reproduction system, but rather evolved multiple times. They openly stated that “sexual reproduction evolved multiple times throughout evolution.” The problem is, if sex is unlikely to have evolved once, it is far more unlikely to have evolved as many as 12 different times to explain the different sexual systems listed by Yaiv and noted above.
The authors’ phraseology implies that animals can choose their method of reproduction, as if it were a conscious choice made by the organism. They write,
some species have found alternatives to sexual reproduction, and prefer to grow clonally and yet undergo infrequent facultative sexual reproduction. These organisms are mainly invertebrates and microbes.[13]
Summary
Most evolutionists believe that evolution explains the origin of all types of sexual reproduction but struggle to determine when, how, and why sex evolved. The PNAS paper reviewed here is no exception. All past attempts fail, and the paper reviewed here, published in a leading American science journal, is another example of the norm. Now evolutionists have to explain the evolution of over a dozen types of sexual reproduction. But they must admit that sexual reproduction is evolutionarily conserved, meaning that, when examined historically, it has been shown to have not changed.[14] In other words, no evidence exists that any of the sexual systems the authors discussed have evolved. All evolutionists can do is attempt to speculate how one sex system could have evolved into another reproductive method.
References
[1] Trivers, Robert. The evolution of sex: A review of the masterpiece of Nature: The evolution and genetics of sexuality. The Quarterly Review of Biology 58(1):62-67, March 1983.
[2] Yaiv, Vikas, et al. On the evolution of variation in sexual reproduction through the prism of eukaryote microbes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120(10). 3 March 2023; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2219120120.
[3] Yaiv et al., 2023; ref. 2.
[4] Dias, Brian, and David Crews. Regulation of pseudosexual behavior in the parthenogenetic whiptail lizard, Cnemidophorus uniparens. Endocrinology 149(9):4622–4631, September 2008.
[5] Mishra, Abhishek, et al. Parasexuality of Candida species. Frontiers in Cell Infection Microbiology 11:796929; doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2021.796929, 2021.
[6] Lavanchy, Guillaume, and Tanja Schwander.
Hybridogenesis. Current Biology 29(3, 4):539, February 2019.
[7] Schlupp, Ingo. The evolutionary ecology of gynogenesis. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 36:399–417, 2005.
[8] Komma, Donald, and Sharyna Endow. Aploidy and androgenesis in Drosophila. PNAS-Genetics. 92:11884-11888; December 1995.
[9] Yaiv, et al., 2023; ref. 2, italics added.
[10] Bell, Graham. The Masterpiece of Nature: The Evolution and Genetics of Sexuality. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, p. 19, 1982.
[11] Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, New York, NY, p. 46, 1976.
[12]Margulis, Lynn, and Dorion Sagan. Origins of Sex. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, p. 3, 1986.
[13] Yaiv, et al., 2023; ref. 2. Emphasis added.
[14] Yaiv, et al., 2023, p. 1; ref. 2.’https://crev.info/2023/03/evolution-of-sex/
It does seem at least to me, that there are today more and more groups calling themselves “Christian” that are applauding and promoting the Sodomite life. However, that lifestyle is not called Sodomy anymore but is now known by letters from the alphabet; LGBTQUIA etc. etc. Well, someone can call themselves whatever they desire but that doesn’t make it true or Biblically accepted. Israel was a theocracy under the headship of the Creator Himself and this is what it says in the Old Testament concerning those called by the name Sodomite.
1Kings 14:24 And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.
1Kings 15:12 And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.
1Kings 22:46 And the remnant of the sodomites, which remained in the days of his father Asa, he took out of the land.
2Kings 23:7 And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
Of course most people know of Sodom and what occurred there! Now, in the New Testament we do not find the word Sodomite but we do read of the lifestyle and it is not a lifestyle that finds favour with God. In Romans chapter One and verses 24 through 27 we read concerning this lifestyle and what the Lord thinks of it.
Romans 1:24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
Why then do those who profess to be “Christian” push this lifestyle? Is it because they love sin and NOT the Saviour? Is it because they have NEVER had “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus” Acts 20:21?
In that coming day all, whether they be in the Sodomite lifestyle or not, if they refuse to turn from their sin to faith in the Lord Jesus as their own personal Saviour they personally will suffer the consequences. This last judgment is given in Revelation 20:11-15. There we read John saying he ..saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Nevertheless, The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance 2Peter 3:9.
1 Timothy 6:20
“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called.”.
‘During a radio interview on the BBC, Richard Dawkins once said, “The view that all living organisms have a common ancestor, from which they have evolved, is the correct one.” Statements like these often intimidate the layman into thinking that certain ideas in science, such as evolution, must have been proven beyond all reasonable doubt.
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Even serious articles and books written from an evolutionary standpoint have to acknowledge the nature of their theories. Evolutionists like to criticize less experienced creationists if the latter say something like, “But evolution is only a theory.” They will wax lyrical on how a scientific theory is something designed to fit all the available facts and evidences. Yet evolutionary theory fails to do that. It is indeed true that a theory cannot be proved. It can, of course, be disproved, and large amounts of evidence can be accumulated to support a theory. But the theory fails if just one piece of evidence is found which contradicts the theory.
There are innumerable pieces of evidence which do not fit into an evolutionary framework. Therefore, the theory ought to fall, but it doesn’t. The reason why it is difficult to overturn people’s belief in the theory of evolution is that so many people have invested heavily in it.
Those of us who believe the Bible note that scientific principles are consistent with our belief because this is a firm foundation on which to build.’https://creationmoments.com/sermons/scientific-proof-2/?mc_cid=0a28de02c1&mc_eid=00c1dcff3c
Yes, the theory put forth by Charles Darwin was all a lie. For more information go to https://creationministries.org/
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