r/interestingasfuck • u/Significant_Snow_718 • 29d ago

/r/all Chick with genetic defect

Post image
74.7k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

3.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

83

u/Caspica 29d ago

I think it's more that they're trying to point out the difference between evolution and genetic mutations. Evolution is what occurs on a macroscopic level over a long period of time to organisms. Genetic mutations are what happens on the microscopic level that could play part in the evolution of an organism. That doesn't mean that a genetic mutation implies that the animal has evolved. 

7

u/KJEveryday 29d ago

Regarding you saying *could *, evolution doesn’t happen without genetic mutations though.

12

u/Kevl17 29d ago

But not all mutations cause a species to evolve. That's what they were saying.

So any given mutation could play a part in evolution, but many won't.

1

u/Atomik141 29d ago

In fact, the vast majority of mutations do not contribute to evolution

1

u/Reagalan 29d ago

yeah like what happens if favorable mutations are all recessive?

like uh....boids get stuck on termite island; long beaks are favored, but this species always has short beaks cause their genes are dominant

do mutations for long beaks just get buried despite an advantage?