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Comment by duttonw | Hacker News Reader

Interesting read. Would be more interesting to note if the mutations in the offspring were better or worse off.

Mutations are almost always bad for offsprings. Good mutations are rare.

really? they seem more likely to be neutral than anything? also sometimes must be good for example children of older fathers are taller

The X-Men (famous mutant characters) are for comic books. How it usually goes in nature, mutations are bad. Once in a rare blue moon, they are good. Often in some odd, unexpected, or plus versus minus type of way.

And actually, hybridization between near species or more robust mixing between more genetically unrelated pairs tends to be better for more useful adaptations.

>And actually, hybridization between near species or more robust mixing between more genetically unrelated pairs tends to be better for more useful adaptations.

Unfortunately we already killed off, or out bred all other members of genus homo. Though to be fair our ancestors do seem to have got on with them so maybe we just absorbed them more than drove them to extinction?

A lot of research has been done on this, and the vast majority of mutations are neutral, and have no affect on an organism. That is not good, nor bad. Somewhere between 75 to 90 percent of our own DNA, is nonfunctional, and never used.

But in any case, increasing the mutation rate, does increase the chance of bad mutations of happening, since it increases any kind of mutations from happening.

Radiation causes mutations.

Exposing yourself to excessive radiation is much more likely to cause cancer than superpowers. (In addition to a bunch of neutral mutations that do neither.)

I always assumed it's because older fathers tend to have more money, meaning their kids get more nutrition.

i dont think this explains it at all. afaik the pattern is true in developed countries where nutrition is not an issue. ill look at it again though.

More likely older fathers are higher status, which correlates with their own height, and therefore that of their children.

This is going off topic, bit it made me think whether this will change/lessen in a generation or two of remote work. I'm surprised about the height of people I work with when we meet once a year.

We can't reproduce remotely yet, but remaining hopeful.

more likely because women who are taller tend to be more selective about their partner (they want them to be taller than them).. which means they end up having babies at a later age.

Most mutations are indeed neutral. Of those that aren't though, I believe more have negative effects than positive ones. (But the positive ones are more likely to persist, at least historically, due to natural selection.)

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