The number is right, and again one mutation most certainly will NOT ensure a cell goes wrong. Most "bad" mutations are not anything like cancer.
You don't have to believe the "stuff" about mutations being just as likely to be good because it is true. Furthermore, that's not how cancer works.
Cancer might happen when a beam of light hits the nucleus and blasts the DNA out of the nucleus. (This is normally at x-ray or gamma-ray level, and the common skin cancer has to do with our repair cycle for skin when UV light hits it, and our not repairing fast enough.) Other cancers happen other ways, and I don't want to pretend I know everything either, but I do know- the idea of the cells being degraded enough over time to just kill the animal is a little far fetched. Yeah, could happen, but the degrading will take a hell of a long time based on what I know.
Also on a side note: How many base pairs do you think there are? That 1 in 1 billion may look bigger if I tell you that there are 30,000 base pairs in humans, most of which is junk DNA, and then there are also probably quite a few less in a sea jelly. 1 in 1 billion is a pretty big number now isn't it?
You don't have to believe the "stuff" about mutations being just as likely to be good because it is true. Furthermore, that's not how cancer works.
Cancer might happen when a beam of light hits the nucleus and blasts the DNA out of the nucleus. (This is normally at x-ray or gamma-ray level, and the common skin cancer has to do with our repair cycle for skin when UV light hits it, and our not repairing fast enough.) Other cancers happen other ways, and I don't want to pretend I know everything either, but I do know- the idea of the cells being degraded enough over time to just kill the animal is a little far fetched. Yeah, could happen, but the degrading will take a hell of a long time based on what I know.
Also on a side note: How many base pairs do you think there are? That 1 in 1 billion may look bigger if I tell you that there are 30,000 base pairs in humans, most of which is junk DNA, and then there are also probably quite a few less in a sea jelly. 1 in 1 billion is a pretty big number now isn't it?