Mutations

Helpful or Harmful

It is no doubt difficult even to conjecture by what gradations many structures have been perfected ... ...although in many cases it is most difficult even to conjecture by what transitions organs have arrived at their present state. -- Charles Darwin in Origin of the Species" 1859	If we say that it is only by chance that they are useful, we are still speaking too leniently. In general mutations are useless, detrimental or lethal.
It is probably fair to estimate the frequency of a majority of mutations in higher organisms between one in then thousand and one in the million per gene per generation.	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 selections -- quite unaware of the fact that random mutations turned out to be irrelevant and natural selection a tautology.