spontaneous evolution vs non spontaneous evolution

MrHarmtz

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11 years ago

spontaneous evolution vs non spontaneous evolution

Hello i ask you to help me settle an argument with my friend.
the qustion: can evolution be non-spontaneous in nature?
I will elaborate:
the qustion is is it possible that mutation can be non-spontaneous, in a way that a certin organisim developed a mutation on its own to survive in a certin enviroment.
I am not talking about natural selection, but the possibilty that lets say a giraffe, developed its long neck not because a spontaneous mutation occured, but because a "pre-giraffe" tried to get to the higher leaves and past a certin information to its offspring to develop a longer neck.

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padre

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11 years ago

You mean, can mutations be self-induced? Yes. We manipulate mutations by things like artificial selection and sexual selection.

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11 years ago

No my question was more directed at the genetic material itself, the course of its mutation. If a mutation can appear only on its own (spontaneous) or is it possible that it can mutate because of a biological mechanism that is in charge of it (non spontaneous and I don't mean a virus) to evolve like in the giraffe example.

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bio_man

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Educator

11 years ago

Hi there,

Mutations don't have an agenda of their own. They all happen spontaneously (99% of them do). On the other hand, this are things called transposons. A transposable element (transposon) is a DNA sequence that can change its position within the genome, sometimes creating or reversing mutations and altering the cell's genome size.

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