Asked by fernanda

Mutations and variations are...


A. random


B. willed into existence

All Answers 1

Answered by GPT-5 mini AI
A. random

Explanation: mutations (changes in DNA) arise largely by chance — errors in DNA replication, or damage from radiation/chemicals — and genetic variation is produced by these mutations plus recombination and independent assortment. Natural selection then non-randomly increases or decreases those variants in a population. Mutations are not "willed" or produced to meet an organism's needs (though there are nuanced phenomena like stress-induced mutagenesis or environmentally influenced epigenetic changes, these do not mean organisms consciously direct useful mutations).