How did sex pop up? (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, September 23, 2009, 22:37 (5337 days ago) @ George Jelliss

George: Now you are just being silly.-My apologies. Since I had you laughing at the idea of a universal intelligence, I thought I'd try again with the idea of sexual partners waiting for their gradually developing eggs and sperm. I will now spell out the problem in all seriousness.-I'll begin with the bottom line: alongside the difficulty I have in accepting chance as the creator of life comes the difficulty I have in accepting chance as the originator of new faculties and organs. Sex is an obvious example. Like yourself I am not a biologist, and so I am genuinely in need of guidance because there are things I simply do not understand. Since you don't seem to share my scepticism, perhaps you can at least explain to me what is wrong with the following line of argument: -1) At one time there was no such thing as sexual reproduction.
2) Sexual reproduction requires two sets of organs/structures.
3) Mutations can only take place within individual organisms ... e.g. eggs and sperm cannot come into existence unless they have individual organisms to originate in.
4) If the two sets of organs/structures are not in working order, there will be no reproduction, e.g. there has to be a functioning penis AND a functioning vagina.
5) Mutations leading to whatever form of sexual reproduction, no matter how rudimentary, must therefore have taken place simultaneously in two sets of individual organisms and must have worked right from the start in order to survive. -I'm not questioning that these things happened. I'm questioning the likelihood of random mutations producing such complex mechanisms, with the added complication that each change required a corresponding and simultaneous change within the sexual partner. To say they "evolved" is just a cop-out.