Mutation Quotes

• Evolutionary plasticity can be purchased only at the ruthlessly dear price of continuously sacrificing some individuals to death from unfavourable mutations. Bemoaning this imperfection of nature has, however, no place in a scientific treatment of this subject.

  Theodosius Dobzhansky

  Sacrifice, Science, Imperfection

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• In the meantime, the educated public continues to believe that Darwin has provided all the relevant answers by the magic formula of random mutations plus natural selection -quite unaware of the fact that random mutations turned out to be irrelevant and natural selection tautology.

  Arthur Koestler

  Believe, Knowledge, Magic

  "Janus: A Summing Up". Book by Arthur Koestler, p. 184-5, 1983.

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• The secrets of evolution are death and time-the deaths of enormous numbers of lifeforms that were imperfectly adapted to the environment; and time for a long succession of small mutations.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Numbers, Long

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.49, Ballantine Books

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• The central problem of biological evolution is the nature of mutation, but hitherto the occurrence of this has been wholly refractory and impossible to influence by artificial means, although a control of it might obviously place the process of evolution in our hands.

  Hermann Joseph Muller

  Mean, Science, Hands

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• There's almost no food that isn't genetically modified. Genetic modification is the basis of all evolution. Things change because our planet is subjected to a lot of radiation, which causes DNA damage, which gets repaired, but results in mutations, which create a ready mixture of plants that people can choose from to improve agriculture.

  Nina Fedoroff

  Dna, Agriculture, People

  "An Advocate for Science Diplomacy" by Claudia Dreifus, www.nytimes.com. August 18, 2008.

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• In agriculture, people have taken wild plants that can't be eaten by people - and turned them into wonderful food sources. And that's because genomes can change, and people working with plants have picked mutations. Mutations are nothing more than genetic changes.

  Nina Fedoroff

  Taken, Agriculture, People

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• The proof given by Wright, that non-adaptive differentiation will occur in small populations owing to "drift," or the chance fixation of some new mutation or recombination, is one of the most important results of mathematical analysis applied to the facts of neo-mendelism. It gives accident as well as adaptation a place in evolution, and at one stroke explains many facts which puzzled earlier selectionists, notably the much greater degree of divergence shown by island than mainland forms, by forms in isolated lakes than in continuous river-systems.

  Julian Huxley

  Science, Rivers, Lakes

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• The Epicureans, according to whom animals had no creation, doe suppose that by mutation of one into another, they were first made; for they are the substantial part of the world; like as Anaxagoras and Euripides affirme in these tearmes: nothing dieth, but in changing as they doe one for another they show sundry formes.

  Plutarch

  Change, Science, Animal

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• Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.

  Bertrand Russell

  Yield, Materialism, Goods

  Bertrand Russell (1985). “Contemplation and Action, 1902-14”, p.69, Psychology Press

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• No matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution.

  Pierre-Paul Grasse

  May, Matter, Evolution

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• First of all, many human diseases are influenced by, if not caused by mutations in genes.

  Daniel Nathans

  Disease, Firsts, Genes

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• For the first time in history, we can track the evolution of a pandemic in real-time... Influenza viruses are notorious for their rapid mutation and unpredictable behaviour.

  Margaret Chan

  Real, Track, Pandemics

  "Influenza A(H1N1)". www.who.int. April 29, 2009.

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• A comparison between the triplets tentatively deduced by these methods with the changes in amino acid sequence produced by mutation shows a fair measure of agreement.

  Francis Crick

  Agreement, Acid, Method

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• There is nothing exempt from the peril of mutation; the earth, heavens, and whole world is thereunto subject.

  Walter Raleigh

  Change, Heaven, World

  Sir Walter Raleigh (1751). “The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh: Kt. Political, Commercial, and Philosophical; Together with His Letters and Poems. The Whole Never Before Collected Together, and Some Never Yet Printed. To which is Prefix'd, a New Account of His Life by Tho. Birch”, p.93

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• 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

  Causes, Natural, Form

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• Language thus becomes monumental because of the mutations of advertising

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Language, Advertising

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.61, Univ of California Press

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• This seems highly likely, especially as it has been shown that in several systems mutations affecting the same amino acid are extremely near together on the genetic map.

  Francis Crick

  Together, Maps, Acid

  "The Realm of Science" by David Rosenberg, Volume 18, Touchstone Publishing Company, (p. 171), 1972.

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• Attempts have been made from a study of the changes produced by mutation to obtain the relative order of the bases within various triplets, but my own view is that these are premature until there is more extensive and more reliable data on the composition of the triplets.

  Francis Crick

  Views, Order, Data

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• The function of literature, through all its mutations, has been to make us aware of the particularity of selves, and the high authority of the self in its quarrel with its society and its culture. Literature is in that sense subversive.

  Lionel Trilling

  Acceptance, Self, Culture

  1965 Beyond Culture, introduction.

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• In microbiology the roles of mutation and selection in evolution are coming to be better understood through the use of bacterial cultures of mutant strains.

  Edward Lawrie Tatum

  Mutants, Culture, Roles

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• I suspect any worries about genetic engineering may be unnecessary. Genetic mutations have always happened naturally, anyway.

  James Lovelock

  Engineering, Worry, May

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• 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

  Cells, Balance, Doe

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• A final proof of our ideas can only be obtained by detailed studies on the alterations produced in the amino acid sequence of a protein by mutations of the type discussed here.

  Francis Crick

  Ideas, Finals, Acid

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• Mutation is random; natural selection is the very opposite of random.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfish, Opposites, Society

  "The Blind Watchmaker". Book by Richard Dawkins, 1986.

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• All things are changing; and thou thyself art in continuous mutation and in a manner in continuous destruction and the whole universe to.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Art, Destruction, All Things

  Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Annaeus Seneca (2016). “Stoic Six Pack: Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Golden Sayings, Fragments and Discourses of Epictetus, Letters from a Stoic and The Enchiridion”, p.100, Enhanced Media Publishing

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