Question

The sex of a newborn child is a matter of ahance and none of the parents may be considered responsible for it.Justify this statement with the help of the flow chart showing determination of sex of newborn.

Answer 1

Hint: In biology, sex determination is a mechanism that determines the sexual features of an individual or offspring. It helps to decide whether the male or the female, which are the two most common sexes, would be the organism.

Complete answer:
A sex chromosome is a type of chromosome which is involved in the determination of sex. Two sex chromosomes, the X and the Y, are available to humans and most other mammals. Females have two X chromosomes in their cells, while males have cells containing both X and Y chromosomes. Egg cells all have an X chromosome, while the X or Y chromosome is found in sperm cells. This arrangement means that when fertilisation happens, it is the male that decides the sex of the offspring.

Significant amounts of sperm are ejaculated from the male reproductive organ (penis) into the female reproductive organ (i.e. the vagina) at the time of mating. They pass in the direction of the fallopian tubes, where only one sperm enters the egg.

The sperm and ovum process of fusion is called fertilisation. There are either X or Y chromosomes in the sperm and just X chromosomes in the nucleus.

So if the sperm carrying Y chromosome fuses with the egg, the newborn child will be male, and the newborn child will be female if the sperm carrying X chromosome fuses with the egg. There is an equal probability of either X or Y chromosome fusion with the egg, so we can assume that it is a matter of chance for the sex of a newborn child and neither of the parents is responsible for it.


Note: When one compares the different mechanisms between species for sex determination, it is clear that evolution has produced numerous solutions for the generation of different sexes. Sexual reproduction has enormous adaptive value for a species because, in each new generation, it introduces new genetic diversity into a population. In most animals, genes play determinative roles, but even so, environmental factors add extra wrinkles into the developmental process.