Talk:Meiosis

Details?

I'm not at all sure that anyone except a dedicated biology student needs to know the details of the meiotic process. What they might want to know is its significance. I have edited on that basis. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:15, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure either. What i got of meiosis was basically in high-school, and was a little more detailed what we have here. I (My personal opinion, no to-do list) think we should get at least the following into the article, if it is not there yet.

• Mitosis is a "copying" - all the copies are the same.
• Meiosis introduces variation (because of genetic recombination, chromosome crossover). This means that the copies are no longer the same, they are different. (I am not a biologist) From the point of view of "evolution" it may be helpful to get "change" /"randomness" from somewhere.

I therefore think that probably chromosome crossover needs to be explained, and linked....--Eptalon (talk) 20:27, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Ultimately, variation comes from gene mutation. That occurs whether the species is sexual or asexual. What secondary processes such are chromosomal changes and sexual reproduction achieve is to increase the variety within a population. Sex brings together combinations of alleles which may, collectively, have a high 'fitness', ie be far more successful in effective reproduction. However, we're not really in a position to go too far down this line of reasoning in this page. I'll think about your other points over the weekend. Macdonald-ross (talk) 21:47, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Have now come clean on the way recombination shifts alleles from one chromosome to the other. From the point of view of basic biology, this is as far as we need to go. As to whether our target readers would understand it, well... The topic introduces a lot of terms which I personally do not think students need to know. A great fault of biology teaching is to concentrate over-much on details. In modern science, people need comprehension. Details can always be got from reference sources. Although this is indeed a reference source, its target readership puts a limit, I would think, to the level of detail we should permit. But on such questions you are far more experienced than I. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:41, 31 October 2009 (UTC)