'Why does nature toss a billion sperm when one can do the job?' Time magazine essay

Sperm come from men and men play the numbers.

 

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Mother Nature uses one big egg and hundreds of millions of tiny sperm
for one simple reason and one reason alone—to ensure that every human
that is conceived is a champion of champions, one so good that she/he
is the best from hundreds of millions! The sperm race ensures that
only a big winner is born and hundreds of millions of sperm ensure
that the very best of the very best is born. Also the woman's egg number is
so low because the womb space is adequate mostly for just one or two fetus'.
In order to make this ingenious plan work the only practical way to
make every human being a champion of champions was to make the sperm
tiny. Imagine hundreds of millions of egg size sperm. The testicles
would have to be much, much larger which among other things would be
very inconvenient. The amount of energy and body material needed to
produce this large quantity and egg size sperm would produce its own
logistical problems and would be near impossible.. Even the pathway
for the sperm to run through would have to be made much larger. So
Mother Nature made the sperm tiny to create this perfect way to a
human race of only champions. Every human being has
to win the sperm race to get the gift of life.

 

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incorrect, the evidence against this is that the "fastest" are the first to die, the cannon fodder to ensure that the eviroment is made hospitable to those comming behind. if ensuring the best sperm was the reason the body would focus all its efforts on 1 or maybe 2 sperm. the more and the faster the body has to replicate something, the more likly it is to have defects

 

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Well said.

 

Asguard's logic seems sound. I will also add that female infidelity is another reason for males to produce lots of sperm. I recall reading that the more prevalent female infidelity is, the bigger the balls of the males (seriously). This is the concept of sperm competition. The more sperm a male releases per ejaculation, the greater the chance that he'll impregnate her even if she's out nailing other males.

Furthermore, it's thought that some sperm cells are designed to take out competing sperm rather than to fertilize the egg.

Sperm Competition, wikipedia

 

Think of sperm as spam. If just one of these sperm gets through there is going to be a pay day.

Better safe than sorry. A little extra sperm costs very little in energy. Convincing a woman to receive your sperm can burn a lot more calories than making the sperm. Masturbation for weight loss won't work.

Women, particularly older women don't always get pregnant easily. Extra sperm might help. If the woman ovulated earlier the sperm must get to the egg quickly before the egg is no longer able to implant in the uterine wall. If the woman will not ovulate for a while only a long lived sperm will be able to fertilize the egg.

 

You've said this a number of times now, but I've never heard or read this idea myself. Please provide a reference to substantiate your assertion.