Mutation: Difference between revisions

{{cquote|In all the reading I've done in the life-sciences literature, I've never found a mutation that added information. … All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not increase it." - Spetner}}

Mutations either beneficial, negative or neutral are rare instances. They happen on average about once in every 10 million duplications of the DNA molecule (10⁷, a one followed by 7 zeroes). For evolution to progress, organisms require a series of related mutations to occur. The odds of getting two mutations that are related to one another is the product of their separate probabilities. If every 10⁷ duplications of DNA a mutation occurs the equation would start to look like this; 10⁷ x 10⁷ or 10¹⁴. a one followed by 14 zeroes, a hundred trillion!. Mutations which are related or not would barely change finch beak sizes due to drought, or change the shape of a fly wing.