Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!
Remote Ready Biology Learning Activities has 50 remote-ready activities, which work for either your classroom or remote teaching.
"Emergence" and Gender, Sexual Reproduction
Just wondering, since it was noted on the site that emergence is on the table and design is off, if someone would help me understand how the genders came about through a process, when reproduction requires fully-formed reproductive organs--hey, individuals only have a single generation to get their act together and successfully reproduce or all their "emergent" characteristics are lost to posterity. What would be the likelihood of the simultaneous "emergence" of two organisms that had fully-functioning, "complementary" equipment in the same generation of time and in close enough proximity--and for these organisms to even know what to do to make it happen? When did pheromones come on the scene--and what is "instinct"? What were the reproductive transitions to so-called "higher" organisms? Why would emergence favor leaving the highly-competitive ability to multiply prolifically for the ability to produce single digit numbers of progeny? If emergence brought this along, how did organisms reproduce along the way? That's not to mention that mammals would need milk production capabilities, with a perfect combination of nutrients for the progeny from day one--and the mother and offspring would need to have the ability and knowledge (instinct) to participate in nursing. But I digress.... Even with the current competence in anatomy and physiology, a lot has to go right for sexual reproduction to be successful. Again, just wondering--and this is a very small segment of the multitude of changes related to this very fundamentally necessary process.