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ajuclast Thursday at 7:04 AM2 repliesview on HN

If the organism is too efficient at preventing mutations - it would evolve slower, right?


Replies

mfldlast Thursday at 7:24 AM

Yes, but note the mutation rate of germline cells - that are passed to your offspring and hence influence evolution - is estimated to be two orders of magnitude lower than other (somatic) cells.

gavinreeslast Thursday at 8:07 AM

Not necessarily if it had recombination (as in sexual reproduction), but as far as I understand, yes, you’d probably get fewer novel alleles/coding sequences of DNA generated per organism replication