Waddington, C. H., The Nature of Life (New York: Atheneum, 1962), 133 pp. Waddington was a prominent Edinburgh geneticist.
p. 98 "It remains true to say that we know of no way other than random mutation by which new hereditary variation comes into being, nor any process other than natural selection by which the hereditary constitution of a population changes from one generation to the next."
Hulse, Frederick S., The Human Species (New York: Random House, 1971), 524 pp.
pp. 61-2 "Mutations occur at random, not because it would be convenient to have one. Any chance alteration in the composition and properties of a highly complex operating system is not likely to improve its manner of operation, and most mutations are disadvantageous for this reason. There is a delicate balance between an organism and its environment which a mutation can easily upset. One could as well expect that altering the position of the foot brake or the gas pedal at random would improve the operation of an automobile."
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Martin, C. P., "A Non-Geneticist Looks at Evolution," American Scientist, vol. 41 (January 1953), pp. 100-106. Martin was at McGill University.
p. 100 "Our first difficulty is that … all mutations seems to be in the nature of injuries that, to some extent, impair the fertility and viability of the affected organisms. I doubt if among the many thousands of known mutant types one can be found which is superior to the wild type in its normal environment; only very few can be named which are superior to the wild type in a strange environment."
p. 101 "The truth is that there is no clear evidence of the existence of such helpful mutations. In natural populations endless millions of small and great genic differences exist, but there is no evidence that they arose by mutation."
p. 103 "For any acceptable theory of the mechanism of evolution, a great number of fully viable hereditary variations is necessary. Mutation does produce hereditary changes, but the mass of evidence shows that all, or almost all, known mutations are unmistakably pathological and the few remaining ones are highly suspect."
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Kimura, Motoo, "Population Genetics and Molecular Evolution," Johns Hopkins Medical Journal, vol. 138 (June 1976), pp. 253-261.
p. 260 "From the standpoint of population genetics, positive Darwinian selection represents a process whereby advantageous mutants spread through the species. Considering their great importance in evolution, it is perhaps surprising that well-established cases are so scarce; for example, industrial melanisms in moths and increases of DDT resistance in insects are constantly being cited. On the other hand, examples showing that negative selection is at work to eliminate variants produced by mutation abound … elimination of deviants to keep the status quo … is the most common type of natural selection….
"At the same time, the possibility of mutational pressure directing the course of evolutionary change has been much enhanced. It appears that whenever a character becomes shielded from the direct action of natural selection, mutations start to accumulate in the population by random drift leading to degeneration in many cases."
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Ayala, Francisco J., "The Mechanisms of Evolution," Scientific American, vol. 239 (September 1978), pp. 56-69.
p. 58 "A mutation can be considered an error in the replication of DNA prior to its translation into protein."
p. 63 "It therefore seems clear that, contrary to Darwin’s conception, most of the genetic variation in populations arises not from new mutations at each generation but from the reshuffling of previously accumulated mutations by recombination. Although mutation is the ultimate source of all genetic variation, it is a relatively rare event, providing a mere trickle of new alleles into the much larger reservoir of stored genetic variation. Indeed recombination alone is sufficient to enable a population to expose its hidden variation for many generations without the need for new genetic input by mutation."
p. 64 "A dramatic recent example of such adaptation is the evolution by insect species of resistance to pesticides…. Insect resistance to a pesticide was first reported in 1947 for the housefly (Musca domestica) with respect to DDT. Since then resistance to pesticides has been reported in at least 225 species of insects and other arthropods. The genetic variants required for resistance to the most diverse kinds of pesticides were apparently present in every one of the populations exposed to these man-made compounds." [Emphasis added].
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Muller, H. J., "Radiation Damage to the Genetic Material," American Scientist, vol. 38 (January 1950), pp. 33-50, 126.
p. 35 "But mutations are found to be of a random nature, so far as their utility is concerned. Accordingly, the great majority of mutations, certainly well over 99 per cent, are harmful in some way, as is to be expected of the effects of accidental occurrences."
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Simpson, George Gaylord, "Uniformitarianism: An Inquiry into Principle, Theory and Method in Geohistory and Biohistory," in Essays in Evolution and Genetics (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1970, 594 pp.), ed. Max K. Hecht and William C. Steere, pp. 43-96.
p. 80 "The somatic effects of mutations vary from great to barely perceptible or, quite likely, to imperceptible by usual methods of observation. The probabilities that a mutation will survive or eventually spread in the course of evolution tend to vary inversely with the extent of its somatic effects. Most mutations with large effects are lethal at an early stage for the individual in which they occur and hence have zero probability of spreading. Mutations with small effects do have some probability of spreading and as a rule the chances are better the smaller the effect…. Moreover, despite the fact that a mutation is a discrete, discontinuous effect at the cellular, chromosome or gene level, its effects are modified by interactions in the whole genetic system of an individual (oddly enough, there is no generally accepted term for that important concept)."
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Mayr, Ernst, Populations, Species and Evolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), 453 pp.
p. 164 "Every character of an organism is affected by all genes and every gene affects all characters."
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Crow, James F., "Ionizing Radiation and Evolution," Scientific American, vol. 201 (September 1959), pp. 138-160. Crow was Chairman of Medical Genetics at the University of Wisconsin.
p. 138 "The mutation rate affects not only the evolution of the human species but also the life of the individual. Almost every mutation is harmful, and it is the individual who pays the price. Any human activity that tends to increase the mutation rate must therefore raise serious health and moral problems for man."
p. 155 "Of all the natural selection that occurs, only a small fraction leads to any progressive or directional change. Most selection is devoted to maintaining the status quo, to eliminating recurrent harmful mutations, or to adjusting to transitory changes in the environment. Thus much of the theory of natural selection must be a theory of statics rather than dynamics."
p. 156 "The process of mutation also produces ill-adapted types. The result is a lowering of the average fitness of the population, the price that asexual, as well as sexual, species pay for the privilege of evolution. Intuition tells us that the effect of mutation on fitness should be proportional to the mutation rate; Haldane has shown that the reduction in fitness is, in fact, exactly equal to the mutation rate."
p. 160 "There can be little doubt that man would be better off if he had a lower mutation-rate. I would argue, in our present ignorance, that the ideal rate for the foreseeable future would be zero."
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Muller, H. J., "How Radiation Changes the Genetic Constitution," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 11 (November 1955), pp. 329-338. Prepared for the Geneva Conference of the United Nations.
p. 331 "It is entirely in line with the accidental nature of natural mutations that extensive tests have agreed in showing the vast majority of them to be detrimental to the organism in its job of surviving and reproducing, just as changes accidentally introduced into any artificial mechanism are predominantly harmful to its useful operation….
"It is nevertheless to be inferred that all the superbly interadapted genes of any present-day organism arose through just this process of accidental natural mutation." [This is a statement of faith in evolution orthodoxy ]
p. 337 "At the same time, the dangerous mistake should not be made of considering man as a species who would himself undergo a long-term benefit from the application of radiation to his germ plasm."
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