Abstract
Ever since 1927 when the author began his work in mathematical biology, one of the most intriguing problems in biology appeared to him to be: Why are there only two sexes? The question may seem to be utterly absurd, possibly because we are empirically so used to the existence of two opposite sexes that we take this fact for granted. Genetics shows us the usefulness of sexual reproduction compared with asexual reproduction. The former provides for the possibility of producing a number of new combinations of genes and thus a number of different varieties of individuals of a species. But why only two sexes? It is logically conceivable that biological structures may exist such that their multiplication may require the fusion not of two but of three, four or any other numberk of cells. Such situations are quite easily imagined for unicellulars, such as bacteria or paramecia. But with some greater effort of our imagination we may well imagine such a situation to occur also in higher organisms and men. Why does this not occur? This paper discusses some possible answers to this question.
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Most of this work was done at the Mental Health Research Institute, University of Michigan,
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Rashevsky, N. Contributions to the theory of organismic sets: Why are there only two sexes. Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 32, 293–301 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02476892
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02476892