Eric's point was rather simple - in any group of radiation induced mutations, some of them will be beneficial. We can generalize that to any mutation, not just radiation induced. That is precisely how natural selection has worked for billions of years. Creatures don't mutate in response to environmental pressures. Mutations occur and if one of those mutations is more adept at surviving in a particular ecological niche then it is passed on. Most such mutations are not passed on as the individual possessing the mutated gene fails to survive.

This is not an attempt to justify depleted uranium in Iraq. The article simply pointed out that rather than using genetic modification techniques (which have already been shown to be unexpectedly dangerous), this process simply takes an existing genetic set and mutates it exactly as nature does then sees if we get a viable offspring. Huge numbers of failed mutants get discarded this way but the few that are useful have entered our daily lives as useful products. The fact that this process simply uses the exact same steps as nature itself is reassuring, as opposed to combining DNA from completely different creatures then wondering what the heck you got out of that transaction and discovering the dangers months or years later.

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Dr. Albert Bartlett
Into the Grey Zone