Archives filed under category ‘Science’
Emm....
22 June 2008 – 5:34 pmSomebody just forwarded me this:
Bad guys really do get the most girls - New Scientist
However, there is a down side of it. Bad guys attract more girls, but it is very difficult to have a long term relationship.
Just little bit of my thoughts.
From evolutionary standpoint I think short relationship is a good thing. If you still remember your sixth form biology, you should be able to recall that all living organisms have only one sole purpose: to pass on the genes.
Short terms can produce a lot offspring.
However, that only applies to the prehistoric society.
In a modern society like the one we got here, more children means more responsibility to the father, thus requiring a lot of energy from the father side to raise those children. However, Men are pretty good at escaping from responsibilities, so that might be OK.
But if a father cannot invest enough resource to his children, they are more likely to fail in this very competitive society.
Now those children have two options: be evil just like their father did, or the genes cease to pass on from there.
I think the first scenario happens more in our society.
Compare with that, good guy have enough energy and resource to invest on his children, make his children strong and can withstand the competition, thus has a higher chance to pass the genes on.
From genetic point of view, the competition between the good and bad guys is more like a tie, there's no right or wrong strategy for this. It's just a choice between produce very few offspring and help them survive, or many offspring but let the nature(society) to select who survive.
So be good or bad? Your choice.
But based on my common sense, I prefer the "good guy" strategy. Produce offspring requires a lot of energy too:), especially for the mother side, if only a very small fraction of offspring produced can survive, it is not sensible to produce them at a large quantity.
Nah, I haven't been touching my biology book for years, the comments above are just for fun, don't take it seriously.
shocked
19 June 2008 – 4:40 pmI am absolutely shocked to see ban on sex selective fertilisation is recommened by the Bioethics Council, a ministerial advisory committee to be loosen.
Whether this happens in mother's womb, or in vitro fertilisation, the practice is highly unethical, and very wrong to allow people playing god, unless it is necessary treat a genetic disorder or disease.
What fundamentally wrong about this, is that all the reasoning for this recommendation is based on the assumption that a child is the property of his/her parents so parents have the right to choose between a boy or girl, just as the freedom of choice people exercised in clothing colours when they are shopping around.
It doesn't take a moment to realise that this is very wrong.
If every one wants to exercise the freedom of choice, then the unborn babies are also human being, they also should have the right to choose whether he/she wants to be born as the child of such parents, or choose not to be born.
But babies cannot speak. So at end of the day it's the group who cannot stand for themselves suffer.
Apart from ethical issues, this will also create gender imbalance in our population.
One of the reasoning the bioethical council used to justify this selective fertilisation is that parents who had three boys or girls should have the right to have a opposite sex baby.
I have serious question on those councillors' professionalism in this field. Yes that is the fact, but the larger fact is that if I got three boys, it is very likely that a family somewhere else in New Zealand also got three girls, thus maintaining an overall natural balance.
If every one who got three boys or girls go for sex selective fertilisation, the gender balance would not become a problem. But the problem is, not everyone will act in this selfish way.
This issue has to be consulted properly, not just a report or 700 people's opinion. Any rush on rule changes will cost us our country's future.
Sex selective fertilisation should only be allowed if it is for the well-being of the child, not parents.


