Frozen Evolution. Or, that’s not the way it is, Mr. Darwin. A Farewell to Selfish Gene.

The emergence of sexual reproduction meant a fundamental turning point in biological evolution.However, it is to a certain degree doubtful whether simply increasing the evolutionary potential of sexually reproducing organisms could be the property that, as a subject of natural selection led to the emergence and especially the permanent maintenance of sexual reproduction in nature.As we have already shown on several examples at the beginning of this chapter, sexual reproduction constitutes a certain luxury for the individual and, in a great many cases, places it at a selectional disadvantage compared to asexually reproducing individuals.Species selectionprovides a somewhat greater chance for maintenance of sexual reproduction, i.e. the advantage for species that have greater resistance to extinction because of their greater evolutionary (e.g. micro-evolutionary) potential.However, species selection cannot explain why most species remain sexual for the whole time of their existence, why parthenogenetic mutants do not prevail in time.

            Evolution cannot plan for the future and is not capable of anticipating the advantage that could be provided by a certain structure or process in the future.Thus, if asexually reproducing individuals are not to predominate in the population, the genes for sexual reproduction must provide an immediate advantage for their carriers.Several hypotheses exist about the nature of such an immediate advantage.These include, for example, the reparation model and a group of models taking into account the positive effect of sexual reproduction on the inclusive fitness of the individual.