August 20th, 2011, 10:11 PM
Who of us is the ultimate man? To find out we need to do an experiment:
Take 1000 small sperm samples from sperm banks, mix everything together in a test tube, then inseminate 100 women with this mixture and wait to see which sperm "wins" the race to the eggs. Whichever guy's sperm wins the most, is the strongest male according to mother nature.
Has this expermient or anything similar, been done, and what are the traits which characterize this male?
Nature is performing this experiment right before your eyes.
No, this is wrong. Gene fitness is indicated by the fitness of the PERSON, not on the sperm. For example: sperm from autistic & down syndrome can still inseminate the egg (there's no reason why not), similarly with people with other gene disease (cancer, ect ect) , and... people with Huntington-disease even had more children!.Who of us is the ultimate man? To find out we need to do an experiment:
Take 1000 small sperm samples from sperm banks, mix everything together in a test tube, then inseminate 100 women with this mixture and wait to see which sperm "wins" the race to the eggs. Whichever guy's sperm wins the most, is the strongest male according to mother nature.
Has this expermient or anything similar, been done, and what are the traits which characterize this male?
remember that survival of the fittest is an exam in 3 parts : first you the union of egg and sperm needs to lead to a viable embryo, then you need to grow up to adulthood without getting eaten or otherwise killed, and thirdly you need to then find a mate who you can the start the process all over again
no point in excelling in the first exam if you're going to flunk the other 2
[QUOTE=msafwan;280607]There's no doubt people with all kinds of illnesses can impregnate women, the point is, their sperm is likely to be of less stellar quality than others. Therefore, in competition, as in the test tube experiment, they will lose out.No, this is wrong. Gene fitness is indicated by the fitness of the PERSON, not on the sperm. For example: sperm from autistic & down syndrome can still inseminate the egg (there's no reason why not), similarly with people with other gene disease (cancer, ect ect) , and... people with Huntington-disease even had more children!.
You make a good point if we were still living in the stone ages, where humans really were at risk of being eaten by large cats, and where mating opportunities were scarce. So in this age, the interesting aspect is how nature selects the ideal male through sperm.Originally Posted by marnixR
sorry, have to disagree here - as other people said, if your child is autistic or has Down's syndrome, their chances of passing on your genes are rather slim - hence the success of your sperm to meet up with an egg cell has been nullified by subsequent events
Last edited by marnixR; August 21st, 2011 at 10:30 AM. Reason: typo corrected
As said, fitness is not judged by the individual spermatozoa - but the person. One of the important qualities of fertilisation is that the success of individual sperm is completely random...
Jamie.
How do you know this to be true? Not all illnesses will have an effect on the potency of sperm cells, in fact I'd imagine this would be relatively uncommon. A reference would be good.There's no doubt people with all kinds of illnesses can impregnate women, the point is, their sperm is likely to be of less stellar quality than others. Therefore, in competition, as in the test tube experiment, they will lose out.
The fitness of a person's sperm cells is one element of overall fitness. It's not irrelevant, but it's also not directly connected to other forms of fitness as CNZSU is suggesting.
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