Is Sex Important?

We were given a fictional debate about the different types of reproduction. The author, Olivia Judson, presents herself as a TV talk show host, interviewing an asexual, single cell, a bdelloid rotifer. She argues that asexual is the better way to live. Asexual species reproduce by cloning/ bacteria fission, budding, regeneration, and vegetation propagation. Benefits of asexual reproduction are the short amount of time it takes, how easy it is, can be a single parent, and can produce lots of offspring. "All else being equal, an asexual female who appears in a population should have twice as many offspring as her sexual counterparts" (Judson 215). Sexual reproduction, on the other hand, use broadcast spawning, paired spawning, spores, seeds, and (most commonly) copulation. This way, it creates genetic variation, allows survival rate to increase, and ensures the "best" pass in their genes. It requires lots of energy and time, exposes parasites/STDs, creates ad genetic combinations, and creates competition. Bacteria gives an argument to the debate and states, " For is bacteria, reproduction is asexual: we simply divide into two genetically identical cells. This way, sex- by which I mean the acquisition of extra genes- is something that we reap the benefits of during our lives" (Judson 217). However, the hostess says, "... if the harmful mutations rate is high enough, there is no way to survive without sex" (Judson 227), arguing with the asexual species. An armodillo agrees with reproducting sexually and states,"Sex is an advantage because it breaks up gene combinations: it creates the genetic version of a moving target. With each act of sex, the parasites have to start again from square one... In other words, you have to change to stay where you are" Judson 228). After reading the strange passages, I started to wonder why can't humans reproduce asexually if it's so great? But it's not like we can just divide in to two people :P