Are we in our fathers before we're in our mothers?

Question

Just think about it, it takes both egg and sperm to make a human. BUT the sperm cell is alive unlike the egg cell so wouldn't that make us start off as the sperm cell?

Answer 1

The ova is most definitely alive.  Even when it's cell cycle is stopped, metabolism continues, albeit at a slower pace.

Answer 2

The egg cell is alive, just as the sperm cell is.  Both living cells are equally necessary to fertilization.  Half of our genetic material comes from the sperm, and half of it comes from the egg.

And, if you want to get really technical, the egg cell is almost certainly alive before the sperm cell is, so you might argue that we start off as eggs in our mothers.  Women develop their eggs while they are still in the womb.  When they are born, they have all the egg cells they will ever have in life.  Thus, your egg cell existed before your mother was even finished growing.

Men, on the other hand, produce sperm cells all throughout their lives, the vast majority of which never see the light of day.  It takes around two months for sperm to fully mature.  Thus, the sperm that your father contributed to fertilization may have only been a couple months old, whereas the egg your mother provided was older than even she was.

It's kind of crazy to think about!

Answer 3

Actually it looks like an XVIIIth Century idea called preformism. Acording to preformism the structures visible inside the sperm were a smaller, already formed version of the adult organism that some called the "homonculus". The development of the organism was thought of as a mechanical unfolding of the structures already present in the sperm. Problem was that the "homunculus" must have had sperm as well so...

Answer 4

^indeed^

why in the world would you assume that ova aren't alive?

Answer 5

No, the egg is alive as well, otherwise it wouldn't work.  So half of each of us (23 chromosomes) was in the sperm cell,  while the other half was contained in the egg.