Comment by eviks
2 days ago
> Sperm which successfully fertilize an egg are more likely to have specific characteristics, that’s all that matters here as that alone results in survival of the fittest.
This is way too generic. Which specific characteristics? How are those "favorable"? How are "injurious" filtered out?
> Producing even more so fertilized eggs have a marginally higher probability of live birth is a winning strategy.
So why not billions? Now try it with the eggs. Why have a few instead of millions? Again, nothing you say here helps you get to 50mil because it's all too generic "the higher the better; not that expensive" argument quality. And you won't have a higher probability of live birth if your meteor discarding filter don't filter out the defects that decrease this probability
> but they quite literally don’t matter because of the Trillions of sperm being produced
No, they don't matter for this conversation because it's about the meaning in differences in the ability to reach the egg. If every cell has a 0% chance, there is nothing to discuss.
> Which specific characteristics? How are those "favorable"? How are "injurious" filtered out?
Mobility for one, within close distance to an egg the sperm which can orient on the chemical gradient beat out those unable to move.
> So why not billions?
Cost vs benefit
> Now try it with the eggs. Why have a few instead of millions?
Spending more resources on a few fetuses is the chosen strategy. Which would run into issues if both sides released millions of cells. The chemical signaling to abort a large number would be complex at implantation, much simpler to release a limited number of eggs.
> Cost vs benefit
Both of which you've failed to quantify, so you have no answer as to why stop at millions and not thousands or billions.
> Mobility for one
Your continue to stop at the most important part - relevance to your own criteria. If you care about probability of live birth or cutting out those unnamed "issues", how do tiny variations in mobility help? What's the mechanism connecting the two?
> Both of which you've failed to quantify, so you have no answer as to why stop at millions and not thousands or billions.
I already quantified it relative to the metabolic cost on an organism the size of a human. There’s a big difference to us between 10 calories (more specifically 5 to 25 calories) and 10,000 there’s not a big difference between 10 calories and 0.01. Thus we spend a relatively but not actually trivial amount of resources for minor benefit.
A fruit fly by necessity operates at a different scale. It would help if you read my posts here.
> How do tiny variations in mobility help.
Mobility is a complex test of a wide range of cellular machinery. Which means that cellular machinery works well.
Lifespan is similarly a great test for the ability to maintain cellular homeostasis.
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