"Anon."  wrote in
message news:...
> TWINBLUE wrote:
> >>is it the case that the divisions into gender is as close as
you>can get,
> > 
> > evolutionary speaking, to something inevitable?>
> > 
> > While there may be other solutions to the
> > problem of genitic diversity and evolution
> > I would expect that where ever you find life
> > you will find sex. Since more than two varities of sex would be a
bit unhandy
> > evolutionwise you would likely find most 
> > creatures in the universe that are large enough to see with the
naked eye are
> > divided into "male" and "female".
> > 
> What's wrong with a single sex?  I think you have to start by asking why 
> most sexual organisms have multiple mating types (there - my solution to 
> the sex/gender semantic debate!  Do as mycologists do!), and then you 
> can go on to ask about the specialisation of mating types into 
> differentiable sexes.
>

Mating types and sexes aren't quite the same.  The former are possibly
helpful for preventing inbreeding where this might be harmful.  It
doesn't seem to represent divergence in strategy in any sense, whereas
males and females are (with a few exceptions) associated with a host
of stereotypical adaptations which appear to be geared towards
definite, divergent strategies.

In some species there are dimorphisms within, say, males, relating to
reproductive strategies.  Perhaps these should be regarded as similar
to separation of sexes.  For example, the well known RPS game played
by orange, blue and red morphs of male lizards.  Perhaps in that
species we should recognise that there are 4 sexes (three different
male types and a female), or perhaps 2 sexes but with one including 3
subsexes?

Or maybe not . . .
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