Publisher's Synopsis
There is not a biologist today that is unaware of it, parthenogenesis, the ability of the female of a species to produce offspring on her own. First observed in moths in Germany in 1701, today we know that it can occur in various species of fish, reptiles, amphibians, some birds, and hundreds of thousands of various species of insects and spiders. It took several centuries of research and one confirmation after another to finally gain acceptance, and yet still today it stands without any logical explanation, at least not in the accepted genetic/Darwinian view of nature. Life is supposed to come from the chromosomes, both male and female, and yet, the offspring of parthenogenesis can inherit a single set of chromosomes from the mother, duplicate chromosomes from the mother, and some even inherit a triple set of chromosomes from the mother, but still develop into the proper species. In fact, all male bees and ants are the product of unfertilized eggs, the female produces males without any contribution from a male of any kind. Is our genetic view of nature really anything more than wishful thinking? Parthenogenesis would seem to be the best evidence for that conclusion. In the mid 18th Century, after studying parthenogenesis in spindle tree aphids, Charles Bonnet came to the conclusion that the form and function of the body would have to come from the female alone. No one has ever challenged Bonnet's theory of "ovulism", but instead simply ignored it. Even when the 20th Century brought about the massive increase in the number of known virgin births in the animal kingdom, we instead were busy concocting an alternate view, a view that mandated equal male and female contribution to the offspring. It sounded better to many people, but can not explain how some species of reptiles, such as the American Whip-tail Lizard, and the Caucasian Rock Lizard of Russia have become all female species. If our views of nature in general, and evolution in particular, seem to sound more like science-fiction than science, there is a good reason for that. Nature is far more natural than we have been willing to admit, and parthenogenesis is one of the most important phenomenon in showing us where we went wrong.
