Evolving with Mutant
Genes
Janet Kuypers
11/24/19 (the 1859 Charles Darwin
publish date of The Origin of Species)
When with a bunch of men
riding their motorcycles
north of Chicago,
I asked one man
if I could ride in the back
of his Honda Gold Wing.
The Dutch man, Van, said,
“okay, but I usually don’t let
Dutch women ride along
if they’re not blondes
with blue eyes...”
And I got so angry,
nearly yelling,
“look, my Dutch roots
go back to my great
great-great-great-great
grandfather born in 1767,
and all my Dutch family
I’ve ever known, have all had
brown hair and brown eyes,
so don’t you dare tell me
us Dutch people have
that recessive trait...”
and, of course,
I rode along
on the back of that bike,
but it made me think
about what traits
we genetically carry
from one generation
to the next,
and how it defines
how we live,
who we like
and how we carry
our genetic genes
from one generation
to the next.
Because,
as far as I know
genetically
we humans
all started
with brown hair
and brown eyes,
and I wonder
if this is why
I fall for
blue eyes so much.
Because, as I said,
genetically,
we all started
with brown hair
and brown eyes,
so why did it all
get so messed up
with this blue-eyed thing
in the first place anyway?
Well, scientists
just recently discovered
that the melanin
in our brown eyes
may have varied
over the years,
but only about
six to ten thousand
years ago was there
a mutated gene,
a mutant,
that was responsible
for producing
melanin
in the human eye.
Yes, only a few
thousand years ago
did some mutant
gene come along
to see if this
was something
that would work better
in the human race.
Because sometimes
that’s the way
genetics works,
some weird mutant gene
happens once
to see if it works
well for the species.
Sometimes it does,
sometimes it doesn’t,
which may account
for why
not all humans are now
blue eyed. It may
work for some areas
in the world,
but not for all,
so this mutant
blue-eyed gene
didn’t catch on
world-wide.
Which may be why
I’m so attracted
to that mutant gene,
something not so common.
But don’t worry,
the strongest genes
will survive
over generations,
I’ve learned that too,
as we all have,
and become stronger,
and better,
than we were before.
That’s how this whole
species works,
forever changing,
forever evolving.
That’s what we do.
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