The argument over whether macromutations such as antennapaedia could ever be beneficial (or at least could avoid being harmful), and therefore whether they could give rise to evolutionary change, therefore turns on how ‘macro’ the mutation is that we are considering. The more ‘macro’ it is, the more likely it is to be deleterious, and the less likely it is to be incorporated in the evolution of a species. As a matter of fact, virtually all the mutations studied in genetics laboratories – which are pretty macro because otherwise geneticists wouldn’t notice them – are deleterious to the animals
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