Random Mutation Quotes & Sayings

The bradys must hold that, on the average, cumulative selection has to add a little information to the genome at each step. But of all the mutations studied since genetics became a science, not a single one has been found that adds a little information. It is not impossible, in principle, for a mutation to add a little information, but it is improbable.
The NDT was an attractive theory. Unfortunately, it is based on the false speculation that many small random mutations could build up to large evolutionary changes. — Lee Spetner

Everything with me is pretty close to the surface, but having kids has completely ruined my emotional equilibrium. — Olivia Colman

Random mutations much more easily debilitate genes than improve them, and that this is true even of the helpful mutations. Let me emphasize, our experience with malaria's effects on humans (arguably our most highly studied genetic system) shows that most helpful mutations degrade genes. What's more, as a group the mutations are incoherent, meaning that they are not adding up to some new system. They are just small changes - mostly degradative - in pre-existing, unrelated genes. The take-home lesson is that this is certainly not the kind of process we would expect to build the astonishingly elegant machinery of the cell. If random mutation plus selective pressure substantially trashes the human genome, why should we think that it would be a constructive force in the long term? There is no reason to think so. — Michael J. Behe

Darwinism is not a theory of random chance. It is a theory of random mutation plus non-random cumulative natural selection ... Natural selection ... is a non-random force, pushing towards improvement ... Every generation has its Darwinian failures but every individual is descended only from previous generations' successful minorities ... [T]here can be no going downhill - species can't get worse as a prelude to getting better ... There may be more than one peak. — Richard Dawkins

Neo-Darwinians do cite some examples of evolution they claim the NDT explains. Natural selection can indeed account for the replacement of light-colored moths with dark ones when the lichens get covered with soot. But no one has shown that the difference between the two kinds of moths arose by a random mutation. The key point of randomness is not tested by those data. — Lee Spetner

Doubt was probably a sickness he was born with, and fighting against it was his lot in life ... — Andreas Eschbach

Once, on a walk by a river- Eskdale in low reddish sunlight, with a dusting of snow- his daughter quoted to him an opening verse by her favourite poet. Apparently, not many young women loved Phillip Larkin the way she did. 'If I were to construct a religion/ I should make use of water.' She said she liked the laconic use of 'called in'- as if he would be, as if anyone ever is. They stopped to drink coffee from a flask, and Perowne, tracing a line of lichen with a finger, said that if he ever got the call, he'd make us of evolution. What better creation myth? An unimaginable sweep of time, numberless generations spawning by infinitesimal steps complex living beauty out of inert matter, driven on by the blind furies of random mutation, natural selection and environmental change, with the tragedy of forms continually dying, and lately the wonder of minds emerging and with them morality, love, art, cities- and the unprecedented bonus of this story happening to be demonstrably true. — Ian McEwan

Verbal arguments should always be suspect. — Lee Spetner

Out of the millions who write, only very few manage to create an impact. — Saru Singhal

Mutation is random; natural selection is the very opposite of random. — Richard Dawkins

To understand Darwin's work, you have to distinguish between his theory of descent and his theory of natural selection. THe full name of the first is the theory of descent with modification. Some call it the fact of evolution, and some call it the doctrine of evolution. — Lee Spetner

No one wants to see a play called 'Lady Windermere's Fan'. It's going to be called 'Cocks in Frocks II' or I will find another publisher — Oscar Wilde

I never really knew how to throw a football before, — Terrelle Pryor

The combined effects of mutation, natural selection and the random process of genetic drift cause changes in the composition of a population. Over a sufficiently long period of time, these cumulative effects alter the population's genetic make-up, and can thus greatly change the species' characteristics from those of its ancestors. — Brian Charlesworth

I've done 80 books and if anyone has entertained the idea of owning one of my books, I think this is the book that covers all the bases. I'm very proud of it. — Art Wolfe

Although random mutations influenced the course of evolution, their influence was mainly by loss, alteration, and refinement ... Never, however, did that one mutation make a wing, a fruit, a woody stem, or a claw appear. Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of heredity changes shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographical isolation of populations, leads to speciation. — Lynn Margulis

The balance of evidence both from the cell-free system and from the study of mutation, suggests that this does not occur at random, and that triplets coding the same amino acid may well be rather similar. — Francis Crick

Although I insist that God has always had the power to intervene directly in nature to create new forms, I am willing to be per-suaded that He chose not to do so and instead employed secondary natural causes like random mutation and natural selection. — Phillip E. Johnson

We are surrounded by the absurd excess of the universe. By meaningless bulk, vastness without size, power without consequence. The stubborn iteration that is present without being felt. Nothing the spirit can marry. Merely phenomenon and its physics. An endless, endless of going on. No habitat where the brain can recognize itself. No pertinence for the heart. Helpless duplication. — Jack Gilbert