Men, a mistake of nature or a malicious force placed on Earth by a malevolent being?

@HoraceGreenley We can reproduce on our own. We just need to take semen samples before your death.

@SW-User Well you still need men to produce semen. And the more men there are the better for you.

@HoraceGreenley Don't worry about it, we can just keep young, healthy men in cages and take samples every few months.

@SW-User Good luck with that

@SW-User a lab can make artificial sperm with anyone's DNA in it.

@Straylight Wow, so what you're saying is that we don't need them at all? Excellent.

@HoraceGreenley Isn't it still an open question in evolutionary biology as to why sexual reproduction has been favored?

@Straylight Not exactly

@SW-User That's not what I was taught.

@SW-User Best part about women reproducing with each other is there won't be any new men born.

@HoraceGreenley I don't really know much about the topic, but my sort of brother in law has a graduate degree in it and that's what I got from him.

@SW-User asexual reproduction evolved first and then sexual reproduction evolved and the vast majority of species use it.

Genes assort randomly with sexual reproduction.

@HoraceGreenley That doesn't demonstrate why it was ever preferred though, at least as I was told. I wish I remembered the argument better, but the claim was that the advantage gained from having a larger gene pool with competing mates isn't worth the disadvantages from needing a mate. Like at least as far as considering things that we understand, like in simulations asexual reproduction would always prevail. I could be remembering things wrong, or my source could be wrong, but I trust him as a reliable source.

@SW-User Perhaps that simulation focused on a specific scenario with single celled animals. At least I think that may be the case for what you describe.

But clearly, evolution did not have to evolve sexual reproduction. Considering that it is the dominant form of reproduction, the obvious conclusion is that more advantageous or it would not have been adopted.

@HoraceGreenley Yeah, it was clearly preferred at some point. That doesn't mean people understand why though.

@HoraceGreenley Also not a single simulation, like there is an entire field who spends their time with simulations like that.

@SW-User The most compelling argument I've ever seen for the preference of sexual reproduction is for improved resilience to disease and predation. But that's from what I've seen, perhaps there are equally compelling counter-arguments for it.

@SW-User No, but things don't evolve unless they confer an advantage. Nature is generally very conservative. For instance, almost all species use DNA to encode genetic information. DNA evolved a long, long time ago but is still in use billions of years later. The point it, if something works, it continues to be used until something better comes along.

Clearly sexual reproduction has advantages.