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Bees thrive by cloning selves as exact duplicates

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One individual has cloned herself many millions of times:

Asexual reproduction – parthenogenesis – isn’t uncommon in the insect world, but having offspring that are genetically identical to the parent is. That’s because, during the reproductive process, genetic material gets mixed up in a process called recombination. As a result, even if there is only one parent its offspring end up with a slightly different genetic makeup.

However, the female workers of the Cape honeybee (Apis mellifera capensis), native to southern South Africa, have developed the unusual ability to clone themselves while effectively avoiding recombination during reproduction, says Benjamin Oldroyd at the University of Sydney.

Christa Lesté-Lasserre, “A single honeybee has cloned itself hundreds of millions of times” at New Scientist

The clones, by invading and laying eggs instead of working, kill 10 per cent of colonies in South Africa each year. “It’s like a transmissible social cancer,” one researcher says.

But another researcher allows us to know: “For the Cape honeybees, the cloning is perfectly in keeping with evolutionary theory, says Laurent Keller at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. ‘Evolution is just selecting what’s doing well at a given time.’”

But wait. Did any evolution pundit claim that one bee cloning itself many millions of times (identical copies) would be an example of evolutionary fitness? If evolutionary fitness is whatever happens to “be doing well” at a given time, there is no theory. How does it differ from “whatever happens”?

Comments
Hundred of millions of Identical copies.... poor design, right?martin_r
June 13, 2021
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Darwinists developed an unfalsifiable theory ... asexual reproduction has its benefits, sexual reproduction has its benefits ... when you are slow it has benefits, when you fast it has benefits ... when you evolve wings it has benefits, when you then lose the wings it has benefits.... it is like in some mental hospital ...martin_r
June 13, 2021
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'Selection' is used in a slippery way here. Bees have both reproductive methods available, and each bee actively selects which one to use. (Or maybe the hivemind makes the selection by hormones or waves, but it's still an intentional and intelligent choice.) This is not the same as "survivors are selected by surviving", but the author conflates the two.polistra
June 12, 2021
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