Q&A: Evolution – Male and Female
Evolution – Male and Female
Question
Is there an evolutionary explanation for the development of male and female?
After all, a male system would have to develop with no benefit at all until a female system developed as well [also with no benefit at all],
until they were completed into something useful. In other words, natural selection would have to "be patient" until all the mutations finished producing reproductive organs in both the male and the female [which of course would also need to be compatible].
Isn't there something problematic here for the principle at the foundation of evolutionary theory—random changes and natural selection?
Answer
It would be worth asking evolution experts. I'm sure they have answers. This is an example of a gap, and there is a major debate about the issue of such gaps.
Discussion on Answer
You'd be surprised—there's an explanation for everything. Especially in evolution, which as I've written many times is a theory that cannot be refuted. This is such a fundamental question that obviously people have addressed it. Ask experts.
A simple Google search brings up many results. For example:
https://davidson.weizmann.ac.il/online/askexpert/life_sci/%D7%91%D7%90%D7%99%D7%96%D7%94-%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%91-%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%A6%D7%A8%D7%95-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%96%D7%9B%D7%A8-%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%A7%D7%91%D7%94-%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%94-%D7%A0%D7%AA%D7%9F-%D7%9C%D7%94%D7%9D-%D7%99%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%AA-%D7%98%D7%95%D7%91%D7%94-%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%A8-%D7%9C%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%93-%D7%A9%D7%97%D7%A8
Do you agree with what was written there on the Davidson site?
I didn't read it.
The article there only proves what I said.
Quote:
"The theories regarding the mechanism by which this kind of reproduction developed are also only hypotheses."
The whole article is busy defining the advantage of having two sexes, but the fact that there is an advantage does not prove that randomness and natural selection can arrive at that advantage.
The main point of the theory of evolution is to explain how intelligent complexity was created without a planner/engineer.
And this is built on random mutations and natural selection [and even there they are mistaken, because natural selection is basically a filter into which someone embedded wisdom so that it would filter out what is called for—but let's leave that aside for the moment].
And according to this, a development that has no benefit at all for the present creature, and only when completed becomes useful by connecting with another creature—and even that only when the development in the other creature is also completed—breaks the rules of natural selection, and in fact relies on chance creating wisdom even without natural selection. And we're back again to a sequence of random mutations creating wisdom without natural selection!!!
Hope I was clear.
Since I didn't read it, I'll respond only to what you wrote here.
The first quote has no meaning whatsoever, and I don't understand why you brought it. Why does it matter that it's a hypothesis? You're claiming it's impossible, not that it hasn't been proven. If there is a hypothesis, that means it is possible. In general, in evolution almost nothing is really proven.
As for your actual argument, you're mistaken. At least on the practical level, it is enough to point to an advantage in order to say that there is an evolutionary explanation. There are at least two possibilities that occur to me right now (there are surely several more):
1. Each of the sexes developed in a way that was useful for other purposes, and in the end they "met," and that is how a process of reproduction was created. There are quite a few examples of this mechanism in the literature. The best-known example is the development of the eye, which supposedly involves several very complex stages, each of which on its own has no advantage until you arrive at the complete eye, which provides the advantage of sight. As I told you, what you're asking is just part of a broad and old debate about gaps in evolution.
2. It may really be that there is no survival advantage at all to the male sex by itself and the female sex by itself. And therefore masses of such creatures came into being and went extinct, but in the end a few remained that managed to meet for sexual reproduction.
In general, if you want to get into these debates, it's proper that you know the relevant literature (and it's enormous). It's evident that you don't know it (and I don't know it all that well either; that is why in my book I didn't get into the debate about the gaps, but showed that it isn't relevant to the theological discussion).
As for your argument about the filter, again you're missing the logic of the discussion. The question is not whether it is possible that there is a guiding hand that built the filtering processes, but whether that is necessary. In other words: is it possible to explain all this without a guiding hand? Their claim is yes. If you say no, then the burden of proof is on you.
Doesn't it seem to you that in every scientific field, philosophy/logic actually has the power to dictate the possibilities?
After all, every scientific field has a theoretical part—a theory. Shouldn't the theory be limited by the laws of logic?
Years ago I looked for a solution to this question. I didn't find one [apparently I don't have the tools and skills to reach everywhere in a search],
but from a logical calculation it seems to me that there cannot be an answer to this question based on the foundations of evolution as I know them [random mutations and natural selection].
That is, by means of logic/philosophy one can prove that the theory of evolution in its current form is not correct / cannot explain our reality.