Sperm

Please someone settle this argument for me, is male sperm classed as a living organism?

the human being is the organism. it's a living cell (the smallest in the human body) . . .the female egg (ovary) is the largest!

I would think sperm is a cell and not an organism. It only has half the genetic material (23 in humans). I don't think even a zygote is an organism before replication into in an embryo.

Think about it, is a red blood cell a living organism? No. It doesn't even have a nuclues so it cannot reproduce!

I don't really know, think about MRS. GREN.

Originally posted by leestatic
Please someone settle this argument for me, is male sperm classed as a living organism?

it doesn't replicate into an identucal life form, therefore it's not an organism.
It's part of the reproductive system of an organism.

Thanks for the question. It helps to clarify what an organism is.

Originally posted by leestatic
Please someone settle this argument for me, is male sperm classed as a living organism?

I suppose it is confusing. When I look at the computer animations of them, they seem like cute little tadpoles.

Let's say for a while, that a sperm is an organism of its own. Then these questions arise:
Are there male sperms and female sperms?
How do they reproduce? Sexually or by dividing into two new sperms the way amoebas do?
As an organism inside the human body, are the sperms parasites or are they just symbiotic? Why do they only thrive in the human male body, why not in the female? Or perhaps they do like it in the female body as they escape there whenever they can?
Do they survive when the human body dies, and trying to find a new host?

🙂

I only know that every one is sacred.

Originally posted by Redmike
I only know that every one is sacred.

None are sacred...you can make a new one in less than a minute. 😛

Originally posted by tomtom232
None are sacred...you can make a new one in less than a minute. 😛

I'd say at least a few thousand per minute.
Rate of canonization of saints is steadily approaching this number.

Originally posted by serigado
it doesn't replicate into an identucal life form, therefore it's not an organism.
It's part of the reproductive system of an organism.

Thanks for the question. It helps to clarify what an organism is.

What about mules?

Originally posted by leestatic
Please someone settle this argument for me, is male sperm classed as a living organism?

And once this has answered, can someone settle this argument for me, is the female sperm classed as a living organism?

😛

Originally posted by leestatic
Please someone settle this argument for me, is male sperm classed as a living organism?

The strict definition of organism is complex:-
1. a form of life composed of mutually interdependent parts that maintain various vital processes.
2. a form of life considered as an entity; an animal, plant, fungus, protistan, or moneran.
3. any organized body or system conceived of as analogous to a living being: the governmental organism.
4. any complex thing or system having properties and functions determined not only by the properties and relations of its individual parts, but by the character of the whole that they compose and by the relations of the parts to the whole.

Recognising that any fool can look the word up in a dictionary, the laymans summary is that whilst an organism CAN be a single cell (i.e. a moneran, or bacterium as we commonly know it), it can never be a gamete (a sex cell, of which a sperm is one variety). This is because a gamete only has half of the genetic material of the fully functioning cell it becomes on fertilisation.

So no, sperm is not an organism. I hope you won the argument 🙂

Originally posted by tomtom232
None are sacred...you can make a new one in less than a minute. 😛

But each is utterly distinct and unique, its particular combination of genes is never represented again. No two sperm would produce the same organism, even if the eggs were all identical.


Which they aren't of course 🙂

Originally posted by Redmike
I only know that every one is sacred.

i told you Onan !!!

Originally posted by leestatic
Please someone settle this argument for me, is male sperm classed as a living organism?

whatever the definition of organism, is it "alive" ?
it doesnt need to reproduce.
would it make a good pet? 😵