“MIRACULOUSLY complex.” Thus the journal Science News describes a woman’s reproductive system. But an egg from a woman’s ovaries cannot produce life on its own. For this to happen, a sperm cell from the male reproductive system must combine with the nucleus of the egg. But what does the sperm do to make the egg develop? That question still puzzles scientists.

Belief in evolution gives rise to another question: If the male and the female reproductive organs evolved, how had life been proceeding before the complete formation of both?

According to the theory of evolution, human life evolved from simple microorganisms. But, unlike humans, most microorganisms come from just one parent. They reproduce on their own. How could this form of reproduction have evolved into the more complex form requiring two parents? Evolutionists find this hard to answer, as shown in the panel on the preceding page.

This big jump is glibly described as “the invention of sexual reproduction.” But some scientists have the courage to object. Professor Jaap Kies, of the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, describes it as “outrageous speculation.”

“We do not even in the least know the final cause of sexuality; why new beings should be produced by the union of the two sexual elements, instead of by a process of parthenogenesis [reproduction requiring only one parent] . . . The whole subject is as yet hidden in darkness.”​—Charles Darwin, 1862.

With reference to Darwin’s view, Science News, September 8, 1984, adds: “He might have been writing today.”

“This book,” states Professor George C. Williams in the preface of Sex and Evolution, “is written from a conviction that the prevalence of sexual reproduction in higher plants and animals is inconsistent with current evolutionary theory.”

In his book The Evolution of Sex, Professor John Maynard Smith presents “a scheme for the origin of sex,” calling it “the best scheme I can offer.” He states in conclusion: “I cannot pretend to much confidence in this explanation.”

“Sex is the queen of problems in evolutionary biology. . . . It seems that some of the most fundamental questions in evolutionary biology have scarcely ever been asked . . . The largest and least ignorable and most obdurate of these questions is, why sex?”​—The Masterpiece of Nature, by Professor Graham Bell.