Are radiation-induced mutations always harmful, or can they cause beneficial ones?

Question

Please, no jokes or references to Sci-Fi or Fantasy. This is a serious question requiring serious answers.

Answer 1

I presume you mean radiation-caused genetic mutations within the DNA molecule.

Radiation is only one means of causing mutations. Others are caused by chemicals, heavy metals binding to DNA, and simple errors in copying DNA during cell divisions.

DNA controls assembly of proteins and other molecules. If the DNA is altered, structures of proteins or other molecules are altered, and they usually do not work properly -- the vast majority of time, in fact. In very rare cases, the change creates molecules or alters structures so that they work better, perhaps even take on a new function. Most of the time, the cell with the mutation fails to function properly and it dies. If DNA repair functions fail to work, the cell can become cancerous. Might this be a good reason for people to avoid x-rays and other forms of radiation?

If DNA in one cell of a multicellular organism has a lethal mutation, that cell dies, but in a tree or human, the loss of a cell or a few usually does not mean much. Why?

If the mutation takes place in a germ cell (a cell that gives rise to eggs or sperm) that mutation could be passed on to descendents -- if the new organism-to-be is not killed outright by its DNA that does not function properly. Evolution tends to weed out mutations that are deleterious. Evolution tends to preserve the rare mutations that confer a competitive advantage.

How many organisms do you see with obvious mutations, characteristics that no one has seen before? This might indicate to you how rare beneficial genetic mutations are.

Cheers!

Answer 2

Radiation-induced mutations should have the same frequency of helpful, harmful, and inconsequential as any other mutation. It doesn't really matter what the source of the error is. Most mutations are not helpful, as it is unlikely that a random change is going to be better than what natural selection has chosen over so many years.

Answer 3

That one is distinctly bogus dude. those experiments practice form, now not mutation. Even creationists will admit to form (we as human beings adapt after all). And the occasion he provides of the nylon ingesting micro organism grew to become into genetically altered to do precisely that. effective genetic mutation would desire to be spoke of with out any interference from us, in any different case it turns into engineering and not haphazard possibility. between the tenants of non-theistic evolution is that each and every thing happens for no obvious reasoning, that's only possibility mutation that creates a sparkling species. Speciation (sp?) is what desires to be shown, now not form. As an aside, i detect it extra effective than nerve-racking that such dissimilar non-creationists would desire to continuously call-call and bash creationists. the guy asked a question, you would be able to desire to a minimal of have the consumer-friendly decency to enable one human beings answer. a pair of you chimed in in the previous a unmarried creationist even confirmed up.