Someone once told me ...

[marshlander]

... So the way nature intended was obviously for the male and female to come together, each supplying 50% of the new being's DNA each, so that no new born being is ever the same, and thus eliminating the chance of the race becoming extinct because of one particular gene for instance. Everything has a purpose.

Sorry, Smurlos, I'm going through a tediously argumentative phase. Perhaps it's the menopause or something. Hopefully I'll grow out of it.

I don't believe that nature "intends" anything. Events take place and consequences result. Nature has no master blueprint. If the consequences confer advantage a new set of events become possible. As I understand it, this is simply natural selection. If nature had intention in the reproductive process what would be the purpose of infertility?

I disagree that everything has a purpose, but I would accept that "everything" (whatever that might mean) has a spectrum of possibilities.

Coming back to something like the main thrust of the discusssion, though, the diversity resulting from the natural selection process is important in the human species. How we deal with difference and diversity is one of the things that sets us apart from other species in the living world. I don't expect you have much experience with hatching chickens, but I would not want to be part of a world where diversity from the majority experience was dealt with in the day-old chick way (i.e. peck it till it dies).