Confronting Friends and Family

[The Grand Nudger]

That's just nitpicking a minor error in my wording. The RATE is 50% (ie, you need a male AND a female for reproduction); whether that's done by 100% of the male population or just 1% of the male population is actually irrelevant, so the mere fact that you find an equal number of males and females in most species leads one to the thesis that it's because the optimum number of males, generally, is one male per female.

Right, you -need- a male and a female, which means that 100% of the gender pie is engaged in reproduction, not 50%. I think what you're trying to circle around is reproductive reduction endemic to this strategy (especially considering the "cost" tack). Not that only half of your species is reproducing, but that you get half as many offspring (at least in general terms without referencing any actual population...this isn't a rule..sexual reproduction has it's advantages). Perhaps it's time to remind you that the reproductive cycle as seen from the viewpoint of natural selection doesn't give two shits about how many organisms are -born-, but how many complete the cycle (reaching sexual maturity and successfully reproducing). Those "robust genes" that you don't feel warrant the cost of sexual reproduction (whatever you think that is...but more on that in a minute....) go a hell of a long way in that regard.

What exactly -is- the cost anyway? All sexually reproducing organisms on this rock share a common single-celled eukaryotic ancestor. That makes sexual reproduction one of the oldest, longest running, and most successful strategies in the entirety of taxa...right behind having cell walls.....and metabolism, and right alongside all complex cells and most multi-cellular strategies. A dry appraisal of the situation on the ground (a situation which has persisted since the Proterozoic) would lead an interested observer to wonder what this is all about, what cost, it doesn't appear that sexual reproduction has costed life anything...quite the opposite.

But why might that be? Ah yes, "robust genes". Despite your opinion that robust genes don't warrant the non-existent cost of sexual reproduction, they are the only metric that anything can possibly be judged by with regards to reproduction -which is nothing more than a strategy to perpetuate genetic information-. All hypothesis with regards to the origin of sexual reproduction revolve around eukaryota. No benefit other than "robust genes" need be conferred to eukaryotic organisms to understand why sexual reproduction "stuck". However, whether or not the strategy is successful once it is established has little to say with regards to how it came to be established. How this particular strategy came to be is beyond our ability to empirically explain (what you offered as a theory was a joke...there is no such theory).

the 50/50 ratio has nothing to do with what is the "optimal" ratio of males to females, a cursory glance at fishers principle will disabuse you of this poor choice in wording. Speaking of which, might it be that you make poor choices with regards to wording and examples because you lack an acceptable level of knowledge on the subject to draw a conclusion from? Just tossing that out there.