EVOLUTION AND HUMAN DESTINY 



often those which are the most vigorous; that usually 

 means the ones that have been least subject to muta- 

 tion. Furthermore, very badly mutated genetic cells, 

 even should they succeed in fusion, will generally 

 result in an individual which would be so out of line, 

 that development past the zygote stage does not take 

 place. 



Finally, germ cells when ready for fusion carry only 

 one half of the nuclear material, (chromosomes) that 

 is the standard equipment of somatic cells. These germ 

 cells have prior to maturation undergone the process 

 of "reduction-division" of nuclear material, termed 

 meiosis. In this process, as has been discussed under the 

 phenomenon of conjugation, there is a fusion of the 

 homologous chromosomes of the cell. As a result of this 

 fusion (which apparently also occurs on the "gene 

 level") , the more stable, i.e. non-mutated genes, be- 

 come the effective new genes of the haploid cells that 

 are produced. Consequently genetic cells, at the time 

 of their maturation, should be fairly free of the muta- 

 tion damage done to their precursors. Of course this 

 reduction of mutations that results from meiosis in the 

 development of germ cells, does not apply to those 

 mutations that the germ cells inherited from the past 

 generation. Evidently these mutations, represent 

 changes that are chemically more stable. In effect, all 

 these processes combine not only to eliminate the 

 effects of parental somatic damage in the offspring, but 



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