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©Marko Grönroos, 1998

USENET News talk.origins

Säie: The Rate of Genetic Mutation

cewagner AT spec PISTE net (Charlie Wagner) writes: > It would seem more likely to me that the DNA repair mechanism has > one job: to keep the genetic information from degrading over > time. The fact that there is still some degradation in spite of the > best efforts of the system to maintain itself is not evidence that > it's that way to "allow an appropriate rate of evolution". That > would mean to me that someone or something acted purposefully in > setting the mutation rate just that way. No design needed here either. Mutation rates are genetically self-adjusted to some degree, so that the mutation rates themselves evolve to an optimal rate. If the repair mechanism is too good, mutations stop and eventually the organism loses the evolutionary competition with those who have higher (but not too high) mutation rate. For example, in the B-lymphocyte evolution in immune system, certain DNA regions have very high mutation rates on purpose. The self-adjustment of mutation rates has been well studied also with artificial evolutionary models. It really works, and works well. -- -- Marko Grönroos, magi AT iki PISTE fi (http://www.iki.fi/magi/) -- Paradoxes are the source of truth and the end of wisdom

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