Talk:Vicar of Bray (scientific hypothesis)

Could this article be moved to Vicar of Bray hypothesis similar to Red Queen hypothesis. Parentheses can be avoided in this instance which is preferred, yes?--ZayZayEM (talk) 06:22, 23 December 2008 (UTC) Stricken. Red Queen. --ZayZayEM (talk) 12:00, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Red Queen hypothesis misrepresented?
The article says
 * [A] a more popular explanation for the evolutionary origin and maintenance of sex is currently the Red Queen Hypothesis, which instead proposes that sex benefits individuals directly.

That's not what the R.Q.H. article says. Rather, it says (emphasis added)
 * The connection of the Red Queen to this debate arises from the fact that the traditionally accepted Vicar of Bray hypothesis only showed adaptive benefit at the level of the species or group, not at the level of the gene (although the protean "Vicar of Bray" adaptation is very useful to some species that belong to the lower levels of the food chain). By contrast, a Red-Queen-type theory that organisms are running cyclic arms races with their parasites can explain the utility of sexual reproduction at the level of the gene by positing that the role of sex is to preserve genes that are currently disadvantageous, but that will become advantageous against the background of a likely future population of parasites.

So I'm changing the article to "benefits genes".

--Thnidu (talk) 00:20, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Paragraph headed "Disadvantage of sexual reproduction" is entirely animal-based
Both asexual and sexual reproduction occur across all kingdoms, but asexual reproduction is rarest in animals so these arguments are apparently not very relevant (And in animals it is often caused by Wolbachia infection, when these arguments don't apply at all). BioImages2000 (talk) 01:40, 24 April 2024 (UTC)