Quote:This makes about as much sense as saying that, since female turkeys (or bees...) do not need males to procreate, turkey as a species could survive even if all males were killed. No, self-replication leads to harmful mutation building up even more so than inbreeding does.
Uh, no, Species that rely on self replicate tend to die out not because accumulation of harmful mutations.
mutations that menifest harmful traits don’t tend to accumulate because they kill the host, hence no accumulation. remember?
Actually, species that rely on self replication dies out because they can’t mutate fast enough, not because they accumulate too many harmful mutations.
You see, If you start out with 10 individuals in a self replicating specie with 10 different genomes, and each of them have 10 offsprings. The next generation there are 100 individuals but still just 10 different genomes. Next generation you have 1000 individuals, and yes, you guessed it, still just 10 different genomes. Say you have a new mutation somewhere, oh, zip a dee dooo! You now have 11 different genomes. If a nasty thing, like a disease or a major environment change, comes their way, they have 10, or with a mutation, 11 different shots at having a genome that can deal with the challenge. Now start with 10 breeding individuals in a breeding species, and each pair have 10 offsprings. The next generation you only have 50 individuals. But because each individual’s genome is a different combination of the parents’ genome, everyone of the 50 individual have a different genome, you now have 50 different genomes. Next generation, you have 250 individual, and 250 genomes. If a nasty thing comes, they have 250 different shots at having a genome that can deal with the challenge.
Hence a breeding specie generates exponentially more genetic variation than a strictly self-replicating specie. It is the volume of genetic variation, or genetic diversity within a specie, that allows a specie to better adapt to changing environment.
Diversity is in principle good, in a gene pool, or on a meme pool, as in a culture pool. idiotic conservatives and troglodyte nativists take note.
