Why do living things reproduce?

Inquisitor said:
Bang on. All life originated from what were essentially self-replicating automata. The reason these automata developed such tenacity is precisely because they could reproduce. If they couldn't there'd be no such thing as life.
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edscdk said:
every collection of dna that lacks a mechanisum to reproduce, or is smart enough to make a choice that overwrides its genetic program and decides not to reproduce ceases to exist so its genetic code dies... every living thing is the result of billions if not trillion of generations and every time an offpring decides (or cannot) reproduce its dna is lost,

life is programmed to reproduce and has been since the first ?amino acides? became self replicating ?a billion years ago?

worker ants / bees are still related to the queen so preserve their DNA by looking after the queen / hive / young
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+1

What's more interesting is how complicated multicell organism developed the ability reproduce so well.
 
Good question really and If we answer it one day im sure we will be one step closer to knowing everything. It does seem kind of hard coded into all of Earth's species so must be something important.
 
Efour2 said:
Good question really and If we answer it one day im sure we will be one step closer to knowing everything. It does seem kind of hard coded into all of Earth's species so must be something important.
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but its not hard coded in the sence it was there by design from the beginning...

its coded in because for billions of generations any DNA sequences that produced a life form that was unable / willing to reproduce died out...

you are the product billions (possibly trillions) of generations, the one common factor in every single generation is that it reproduced...
 
Skellig said:
+1

What's more interesting is how complicated multicell organism developed the ability reproduce so well.
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It didn't "develop" the ability to reproduce; it already had it. Rather than complex organisms becoming capable of reproduction, simpler organisms capable of reproduction became more complex.

In essence, the one thing that all living organisms have in common is their ability to reproduce. Complexity can then be built on that foundation.
 
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Its a bit like what i was thinking of today. Why reproduce at all even us humans. Afterall we are condeming a new life to death which ok isnt instant lol but in 70 years or so they will die. Thats what i dont get sometimes. Yeah ppl will say to live life and all but bah tbh id rather have not been born as that way i can avoid death which im really worried about the whole process when it happens and fear of not been alive anymore and stuff.

Weird the whole life thing imo. I seriously question if i want kids later in life as i dont like the idea of having them for them to die in 70 years time.

Who ever started life i.e the idea of it all (god im lookin at u or whatever the smeg u are) are one big sicko. :p
 
edscdk said:
but its not hard coded in the sence it was there by design from the beginning...

its coded in because for billions of generations any DNA sequences that produced a life form that was unable / willing to reproduce died out...

you are the product billions (possibly trillions) of generations, the one common factor in every single generation is that it reproduced...
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A life form that does not reproduce is not a life form, it's just a puddle of chemicals. Isn't it ? Can someone point out a species of life that didn't reproduce, it would have lasted for about a week or well.... not long. I simply cannot fathom it. its 1:30Am there probably is one somewhere but im not going to start googling and reading :O
 
Efour2 said:
A life form that does not reproduce is not a life form, it's just a puddle of chemicals. Isn't it ? Can someone point out a species of life that didn't reproduce, it would have lasted for about a week or well.... not long. I simply cannot fathom it. its 1:30Am there probably is one somewhere but im not going to start googling and reading :O
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wiki said:
The existence of life without reproduction is the subject of some speculation. The biological study of how the origin of life led from non-reproducing elements to reproducing organisms is called abiogenesis. Whether or not there were several independent abiogenetic events, biologists believe that the last universal ancestor to all present life on earth lived about 3.5 billion years ago.

Today, some scientists have speculated about the possibility of creating life non-reproductively in the laboratory. Several scientists have succeeded in producing simple viruses from entirely non-living materials[10]. The virus is often regarded as not alive. Being nothing more than a bit of RNA or DNA in a protein capsule, they have no metabolism and can only replicate with the assistance of a hijacked cell's metabolic machinery.

The production of a truly living organism (e.g., a simple bacterium) with no ancestors would be a much more complex task, but may well be possible according to current biological knowledge. A synthetic genome has been transferred into an existing bacterium where it replaced the native DNA, resulting in the artificial production of a new M. mycoides organism
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproduction#Life_without_reproduction
 
it's our very purpose, we live to exist, reproduce, survive, its as much the meaning of life as toast is.
we are hard wired to survive, we fight for that last breath of air, we have a "flight or fight" response built in so hard it cant take over any person regardless of how 'in control' they may feel. reproduction is no different, we multiply to ensure the survival of our race, evolved for cognitive man... there genome, its just what we are programmed to do!

the meaning of life is what you do with the life you are given, what you decide your purpose is.... that's my theory any way.
 
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