By CHRIS BOCCIA
Added: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 06:06:21 UTC

I understand that it is quite certain that the human chromosome 2 is a result of an end-to-end fusion between two chromosomes, which match quite well with chimpanzee chromosomes (2A and 2B I believe they're called?). This is obviously nothing new, and I'm sure you've probably all debated this at some point or another with some creationists.

My question has been in the back of my mind for quite some time and I finally need an answer for it. If this fusion (being unlikely) happened only once, in one individual, how does that get passed on to future generations? During recombination with another sperm/egg, the chromosomes will not match up and whatever is created will surely be aborted immediately in a controlled cell-death. Just thinking about it, I find it highly unlikely for two individuals to develop this mutation simultaneously so as to be able to produce viable offspring. Even if that were to occur which would be astronomical, the resulting offspring would only have each other to mate with, which would not happen.

There MUST be a good explanation that Is eluding me. I'm just not creative enough to think of some unique answer for this. I'm sure I'll face palm when I hear an answer from one of you (or all of you, lol), but I just can't seem to figure it out. Please help?

TAGGED: BIOLOGY, GENETICS