Sex

When asked to give some examples of design in nature, one of my favourite response is SEX!

What do I mean?

The differentiation of sex is one of the most puzzling issue to scientists. How did we come to be male and female?

Those of us who studied science were taught that we "evolved" from asexual (i.e. having no sexual differentiaton - no male or female but able to reproduce by itself) to sexually differentiated creatures.

Sounds cool, but there is a problem. Science cannot explain how.

You see, let's say the asexual creature "decides" to evolve to a male, the problem is that it did not evolve to be a female at the same time (the mathematical probability of that happening at the same time is considered impossible). So without a female, the male is rendered useless and dies a natural death. Back to square one.

Now, to "evolve" to a male or a female is not simple thing either. The creature has to develop the external sexual organ, it has to develop the "seed", it has to develop the internal sexual organs (the receptacle, the tubes, etc), it has to develop a whole complex of hormone materials that has to adjust its amount in the body with precise accuracy (scientists admit that they do not have the whole picture on this even up to today), etc, etc. That's not to mention how an undifferentiated cell should differentiate into the hundreds of different cells necessary for this!

The other problem is that evolution states that all these happen in gradual stages. Therefore, let's say the seed forms first. But the seed does not have a receptacle to stay in! If it does not have a receptacle to be contained in, it will float around and will very soon be destroyed. So it is with the seed without the external sexual organs (it can't get out and will decay too!)

You see, the creature does not know the end product (in this case to be a fully functional male or female) so why in the world did it develop anything different in the first place!

Looking for designs in nature? Try paying more attention to sex! It is usually a very rewarding experience :-)