I suppose some of us can remember those dreary biology lessons when we learnt about the amoeba and the hydra and asexual reproduction, or, more likely, most of us chose to forget them as soon as we had left the exam room.
Well, we might have been more interested if the true significance of this lesson had sunk in.
If we define death as the ceasing to exist of the unique genetic combination that makes up an individual of a species, then, to the best of my knowledge, and excluding accidental death, murder, and suicide, all organisms that reproduce sexually will die of 'natural causes' within a fairly limited time span for each species, i.
e.
they are mortal.
But life forms that reproduce asexually where the same genetic material is reproduced by division, budding, or other means, to all extents and purposes, are immortal.
If one amoeba is killed its identical genetic material, i.
e.
its self, still survives in its clones.
The inference one can make from this is that the price to be paid for having sexual reproduction is death.
Of course the benefits to organisms, including man, of sexual reproduction are profound, and I don't mean the obvious.
The resulting intermixing of the genetic material allows for far more complex entities to evolve, and if the price of immortality was being unicellular with no self awareness and no sex, who would want to pay it.
Interestingly, the story of Adam and Eve can be interpreted to throw more light on this issue.
Firstly, God created Eve from Adams rib, this fits the definition of asexual reproduction, or reproduction by division, no outside genetic material is introduced, Adam and Eve could have been at this stage immortal as, although God has forbidden them to eat from the tree of knowledge, he has not forbidden them to eat from the tree of life which conveys immortality.
Both of them, before they eat of the fruit from the tree of knowledge, are naked and yet know no shame.
Now nakedness has no connotations of shame without sexuality.
(There is a distinction between sexuality and awareness of sexuality, but for the sake of brevity I'll leave that one for another day).
So this appears to indicate that, at this point, they have no sexuality or may be asexual.
In Genesis Ch2,Verse17 God says, 'But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalst surely die.
' They don't die on the day that they eat the fruit, instead they are cast out of Eden.
It follows that, (because if God intended them to die that day they would have done so), that the meaning of this is that having been created potentially immortal, they are now mortal, they will die at some time in the future.
In Genesis Ch3,Verse16 God said to Eve, 'I will greatly multiply your sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.
' So Eve, is now to reproduce sexually and bear children and by being expelled from Eden will lose her chance to eat from the tree of life, i.
e.
lose her chance to be immortal.
So it seems that the story of the Garden Of Eden may support the contention that in the interests of greater potential for more complex life forms to evolve through sexual reproduction, the sacrifice necessary is to give up immortality.
Of course I am neither a biologist nor a theologist and this is only a theory.
I would be interested to see if anyone with more knowledge in these fields were to write an article pointing out the flaws in my argument.
With regard to sex, I suppose we must conclude that we should enjoy it while we can, we'll pay for it later, with our lives!