What are the major drawbacks of asexual reproduction?
475898
The "Red Queen " theory of why there is sexual reproduction, states that organisms sexually reproduce to vary the immune response to ever changing bacterial and viral evolution, weather natural or artificial selection. You see the asexual organism having great reproductive numbers, this makes vulnerable populations to parasitical attack, hence they clone rapidly. There is also the genetic recombination component that other answers to your question brought up.
741236
between species or within individuals?-I hate the nitty gritty stuff-it leads to chemistry,(yuk), and math,(ugh) both tedious studies that spiral into themselves endlessly-the cells act differently because they are communicating information to eachother derived from different sources and reacting to eachother in slightly different environments.
378787
if you don't mean self insemination, but self-fertilization, the risk is from what is called inbreeding depression. Selfing is the most extreme case of inbreeding. The offspring of selfing organisms (usually plants, but it's possible in many animals also) generally have lower fitness than outbred offspring. The reason is that recessive alleles, which are often deleterious, are brought together in higher frequency and expressed in the phenotype. Repeated selfing in a population tends to purge the population of these deleterious recessives, so some populations may be less susceptible to inbreeding depression than others.
342375
Natural instinct. Humans need to realize that sex is just to reproduce, and we should not focus on it much. There are better  things to do: increase our knowledge, revolutionize technology, stop environmental problems are just a few.
176612
Some plants can reproduce asexually using their stems, roots or by producing bulbs. These plants can also have flowers and reproduce sexually.
576764
Asexual reproduction\n\n\nAsexual reproduction is the biological process by which an organism creates a genetically-similar or identical copy of itself without a contribution of genetic material from another individual. Bacteria divide asexually via binary fission; viruses take control of host cells to produce more viruses; Hydras (invertebrates of the order Hydroidea) and yeasts are able to reproduce by budding. These organisms do not have different sexes, and they are capable of "splitting" themselves into two or more individuals. Some 'asexual' species, like hydra and jellyfish, may also reproduce sexually. For instance, most plants are capable of vegetative reproduction—reproduction without seeds or spores—but can as well reproduce sexually. Likewise, bacteria may exchange genetic information by conjugation. Other ways of asexual reproduction include fragmentation and spore formation that involves only mitosis.\n\n\nSexual reproduction\n\nSexual reproduction is a biological process by which organisms create descendants that have a combination of genetic material contributed from two (usually) different members of the species. Each of two parent organisms contributes half of the offspring's genetic makeup by creating haploid gametes. Most organisms form two different types of gametes. In these anisogamous species, the two sexes are referred to as male (producing sperm or microspores) and female (producing ova or megaspores). In isogamous species the gametes are similar or identical in form, but may have separable properties and then may be given other different names. For example, in the green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, there are so-called "plus" and "minus" gametes. A few types of organisms, such as ciliates, have more than two kinds of gametes.\n\nHumans, most animals, and plants reproduce sexually. Sexually-reproducing organisms have two sets of genes for every trait (called alleles). Offspring inherit one allele for each trait from each parent, thereby ensuring that offspring have a combination of the parents' genes. Having two copies of every gene, only one of which is expressed, allows deleterious alleles to be masked, an advantage believed to have led to the evolutionary development of diploidy (Otto and Goldstein).
140260
Two commonly overlooked disadvantages could be a thinning out of the gene pool (as fads come into play, people start choosing very similar genetic structures for their children to have, resulting in loss of individualism as well as sexual reproduction of similar beings leading to abnormalities in the same way incest sometimes does), and overpopulation, as common genetic defects cause some people to be less likely to survive in our environment, it keeps population growth lower than it would if we averaged at a 150+ year life span.\n\nAlso, in the event of a change in environment, the concurrent views on how genes should be altered would be counterproductive to an adaptation by the human body in order to cope with that environmental change.
297180
The pros are being able to learn about the effects of different genetic patterning.  Perhaps solving some questions of nature vs. nurture.\n\nThe cons very from reducing genetic variety, which can lead to weakness of the cloned species because a certain stressor could knock out the whole bunch if they are genetically the same.  Every time something is copied usually something is lost.  Also cloned species can have unknown effect on other species. For example, some form of genetically engineered corn which is resistant to pests also kills off monarch butterflies that consume a portion of the plant.
866248
Mitosis produces two cells which are genetically identical to the original one. There is no exchange of genes between two organisms, and so mitosis is a type of asexual reproduction.
1164860
Okay, I am going to assume that this is a serious question.  The reason in *favor* of sterilization of insects is that they don't breed.  If they mate, they are sterile, so they don't reproduce.\n\nThe disadvantage is that by itself, this doesn't get rid of any insects.  It just reduces the size of the next generation.  Insecticides, by contrast, kill the insects that are out there today.
94476
asexual reporduction is when the organism simply makes a clone of itself. Sexual reproduction is when there is a joining of sperm and eggs (this can include hermaphrodites because though it is one organism, they have the joining of sperm and egg internally). Both of them have evolutionary value. I think this is a high school question, so your teacher is probably asking which is better at adapting to changing conditions. It is Sexual reporduction because it allows a greater diversity and therefore the species can survive a wider array of conditions. But the sexual reproduction takes a lot of investment to the organism.
158195
Yeast can reproduce both sexually and asexually.  It can bud off to creat offspring genetically identical to the parent.  However, when resources are scarce, yeast cells can form ascospores and sexually reproduce.  Sexual reproduction may create offspring more suitable to the environment and better able to utilize scarce resources, so it is utilized in times of hardship.\n\nHope this helps, please don't forget to come back and mark a best answer!\n\nMore information can be found here:\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeast
17429
1.  Sex between first and second level relativies is exteremly dangerous, can produce extreme mutations.\n\n2.  Incest is generally not looked at as a positive thing.\n\nAs to the occurance, experimentation, ect, between siblings is common, however full out 'sex' is not.
689574
Pros: \n\n1. Advancing the cause and understanding of cloning science.\n2. Creating new resources.\n3. Restoring a lost species to the world.\n4. The opportunity to learn about a lost species first-hand.\n5. Fame.\n\nCons:\n\n1. The potential to wreak havoc with an ecosystem that has adapted to the absence of the creature.\n2. The potential for the introduction of a new virus or germ.\n3. Bringing another animal into a world where people are wiping them out wholesale.\n4. Religious protest.\n5. Jurassic Park 4.
541267
survive and reproduce
586577
I don't think so. homogeneous populations are more vulnerable to diseases. This is because large numbers of the population share the same genes. The more diversified the gene pool the better the chances of survival. That's one of the reasons people reproduce sexually as opposed to asexually. So spread those genes around. :)
207392
In organisms that reproduce only sexually, the mutations in somatic cells normally don't go beyond the individual. But in the case of organisms that can reproduce asexually, by means of divisions of those somatic cells, a mutation in those cells could be passed to the descendants and thus be under the influence of evolutionary forces. \nThat's a common event in plants, especially a type of mutation called polyploidy (multiplication of the entire chromosome set). These types of mutations are also induced by man to obtain new varieties.