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Originally Posted by MolsonInBothHands
First of all let me just say I believe in evolution, but this fact about the vitamin C gene strikes me a little odd. Wouldn't the undamaged gene be more suited for survival of a species? How would the damaged gene have become prevalent? Wouldn't that be reversed evolution? Just asking.
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There is no such thing as reversed evolution.
I have never heard of this vitamin C gene, but nevertheless the idea would be that at some stage in mammalian evolution history this gene stopped working and everything descended from that common ancestor had the same faulty gene. In order for it to be propagated, it must have not had much of a significant effect... probably because the animals with the gene were frugivorous and got their vitamin C from the food they would be eating anyway. If this faulty gene had emerged within a carnivore, it would have been a little more problematic. I haven't looked it up, but I hypothesise whatever ancestor it was that got the screwy gene it must have been a fruit-eater.