I seem to recall the chances of being female are higher than 50%...

Maybe I'm a masochist, and that's why I don't instantly stop reading when I see Charles writing about science. Or maybe it's some version of the same morbid fascination that draws me to creationists. Ah well...

I'm truly hoping you are being figurative Charles. If you are, I'm afraid I'm not getting anything beyond "It's a bad idea to let people choose the gender of their babies" which is a legitimate point. It's also one that can be made without using the jawdropping term "democracy of meiosis".

There is nothing "democratic" about genetics. Also meiosis has nothing at all to do with expression. Genes are expressed in cells and the final product is proteins, which are the tools of the cell. Meiosis is merely a combination of the two copies of each gene every individual has to make a large variety of gamates.

Further THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BOY EGG. None. Zero. All eggs are "female" in the sense that they all carry an X chromosome, since a female is XX and so all her eggs carry one or another X chromosome. Gender is determined by the male gamates, the sperm. However this again has NOTHING to do with meiosis. Meiosis happens during the development of gamates in each individual. Once gamates are mature they can combine (that's the fun bit) and the progeny will take exactly half the genetic material from the mother (including an X chromosome) and half from the father (including either an X or Y chromosome).

So to recap: Democracy =/= meiosis =/= sex determination

Bzzt. An unfertilized egg does not have any gender; the sex chromosomes come from the father.

And moreover, IVF is only available to a very small percentage of potential parents; there is no corruption of the "democracy of the genes", merely a somewhat more rarified environment. This type of rarified environment is nothing different than other, different environments; persons in a tropical climate have an environment of greater warmth and sunshine than, say, ours. Over long periods of time, this "distorts" gene expression (really just a form of natural selection).

A far greater case of affecting the "democracy of the genes", as you put it, is in the case of inbred royalty; and that seems to be very legal (and encouraged!) in the UK.

Gene expression is not democratic. There are recessive genes for example that are masked all the time.

The chances of having a male baby are slightly higher (51%) because the the Y chromosome is "missing a leg" and thus can "swim" faster.

Wow that was a pathetic post.

The system of meiosis was most likely selected for because it increases genetic diversity. This increased genetic diversity does not "reduce conflict"--if anything, it increases conflict--there are more variations that compete against each other for limited resources and the fittest variations survive. If anything, genetics (and meiosis in particular) is the ultimate Ayn Randian objectivist and individualistic (is that redundant?) system. Also, as others have said, please don't talk about gene expression unless you know something about the mechanics of how that works...'cause each gene very much does NOT have an equal chance at expression.

If we were lizards, temperature would have a lot to do with sex selection.

Instead, portable devices do, especially in India, Pakistan, and China.

You do understand what the term "democracy" means, I assume. It does not mean something that is fair, random, just, equitable, evenly-distributed, or natural - it means a form of governance in which citizens directly determine the actions and policies of the state.

In what sense is any aspect of human genetics "democratic"? Insofar as that tortured idiom has any meaning, surely it is more "democratic" to allow humans to determine the gender of their offspring, since we then ourselves determine the outcome.

I increasingly get the impression that you have an interest in philosophy, and have probably done a fair amount of reading, but no rigorous training.

Lynx, i struck out that line in the post because the fact you point out is one my favorite facts in biology. i have no idea why i made that misstep.

@7: I agree with this: "I increasingly get the impression that you have an interest in philosophy, and have probably done a fair amount of reading, but no rigorous training." I'm just a reader. I read nonstop.

It's an interesting topic. When a woman has a miscarriage or stillbirth it's almost always because somethings wrong with the pregnancy or the child has a architectural problem in their body or DNA. Then you add on that we are lowering miscarriages and stillbirths with modern medicine, but we have had a rise in mentally and genetically ill children.
So if we are interfering with the natural defense of our body aborting a child, should we interfere further and make sure the child is healthy?

This was actually one of my favorite Mudede posts yet. Of course his language here is meant figuratively. It's a poetic musing on the unbalance conscious decision could cause as opposed to the more complex--and also more primitive--natural mingling of sexual reproduction.

The "old democracy of the genes" has been corrupt for billions of years. Getting rid of babies with undesirable traits by way of infanticide has been practiced by humans since before we were human. There is nothing democratic about natural selection.