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ImageSMART TALK
by Dr. Amelia Raitt Payne



GENETIC MUTATION: I don't know why the language therapists asked me to write about this term.  True, I am the staff physician at the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired, and perhaps more of a hard scientist, so to speak, than they are.  But still:  Why me?

Surely, anyone with more thinking power than a crustacean can see that genetic mutation is redundant, right?  It's as silly as saying oral mouth disease.

Maybe some don't realize that a mutation is genetic by definition:  Mutations occur due to genetic irregularities, which happen much more often than most people realize.

That's why cloning of complex organisms, such as humans, works about as well as planning to win the lotto.  Even identical twins aren't, any more than are the right and left halves of your face, despite that our teachers told us we're bilaterally symmetrical.  So a look into the mirror tells us that our own cells can't keep making perfect copies of themselves every time, given even the best of conditions.

See?  Why'd they pick me?  I go off into a science lecture.

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