Genetic Mutation Essay

INTRODUCTION:

My project question is: has human development disabled the power of genetic mutations and natural selection or enhanced it? My aim is to understand the importance of natural selection and the impact that human development has had on it. According to The Concise Oxford Dictionary(p 334), human development is defined as the process of enlarging people’s freedom and opportunities and overall well being through various resources. I will research the effect that the progression of humans, in terms of their developments, has had on the abnormalities that have come to occur. I chose to do this topic because only in the last 5 to 10 thousand years of humans existence on the planet earth has a distinct difference in the DNA structure of the human begun to arise. These differences are of recent occurrence. A population explosion was intense up until two decades ago (Paul and Anne Ehrlich,1989) and it is a great interest of mine to understand what influence it had on the mutations that have come to occur. I aim to have a better understanding of whether the majority of the mutations that are occurring are beneficial and therefore encouraging the human races survival or harmful and therefore causing its demise.

“A mutation is a sudden and unpredictable change in the genetic structure of an organism” (Mind Action Series: Life Science Textbook and Workbook Grade 12 FET, 2010). Mutations can be somatic, which means they occur in the somatic cells which have a full set of chromosomes but they are not used to carry hereditary information to future generations. Mutations can also be germ line, which occurs in the germ cells which come together to form the embryo and are therefore passed on to offspring. Mutations can be caused by chro...

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...conclusion that: human development has enhanced the power of natural selection and genetic mutation rather than disabling it.

LIMITATIONS:

A limitation to my research would have to be the fact that there was no evidence that could give a final, complete answer as to whether human development has disabled the power of natural selection and genetic mutations or enhanced it. Although the various research has been undertaken in order to get close to discovering the answer, a definite answer has not been achieved.

The only other limitation that I encountered while doing my research was the fact that i was limited in available hard copies that I could use for my research. The magazines and encyclopaedias that I looked at were insufficient in helping me prove my question and I therefore turned to online articles and information to help me unpack and answer my question.