🚀 go-pugleaf

> Wrong.  Flat wrong.  *NO* new genotypes are created by sexual
> reproduction, cross breeding or not.  New phenotypes may possibly be,
> but not likely.  New genotypes are created *ONLY* by mutation. Your
> analogy to a new book created out of words in the dictionary is totally
> misleading.  Who arranges the words/genes in your scenario?  Sexual
> reproduction is a random selection from the parents.  A more accurate
> analogy would be the random selection of half of the short stories from
> each of two anthologies to form a new anthology.
> Wayne Throop      <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw

Wayne seems to be confusing genotype with gene.  A gene is loosely
defined as the unit which produces some observable trait, behavior, or
biochemical event.  Genotype is the collection of all genes a
particular organism has.  Sexual reproduction usually involves each
parent contributing 1/2 of the alleles for a particular gene to the
offspring.  Most of the parental genes will be the same, but a certain
number will almost always be different.  Sexual reproduction is random
only in that which allele, of the two alleles of a gene an individual
can have, goes to a particular gamete and which gametes unite to form
offspring is random.  For example one parent may contribute the allele
for blood type "A" and the other for blood type "B".  The child will be
blood type "AB", a different genotype and phenotype than either
parent.  Each parent will contribute only one allele for each gene
locus so that reproduction is not a random mixing of genes, but an
ordered manner of allowing recombination of differing copies of the
same gene (= allele).  Given the number of possibly varying genes in
most organisms, each act of sexual reproduction will probabilistically
produce a new genotype.  Some possibly lesser number of these new
genotypes will produce a unique phenotype.

Granted this is just reshuffling what already exists.  However, genes
do not act in isolation, but the phenotypic effect of genes may vary
depending on other genes present.  Note that in the population of a 
species, more than two alleles for a gene may exist but only two alleles 
can be present in any given individual.

>Your
> analogy to a new book created out of words in the dictionary is totally
> misleading.  Who arranges the words/genes in your scenario?  Sexual
> reproduction is a random selection from the parents.  A more accurate
> analogy would be the random selection of half of the short stories from
> each of two anthologies to form a new anthology.
> Wayne Throop      <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw