A Point Mutation Can Be Completely Harmless, or It Can

question 47

Essay

A point mutation can be completely harmless, or it can result in the death of a cell or organism. Explain why these types of mutations can have such varying effects.

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Definitions:

Focus Groups

Structured group discussions used to gather participants' attitudes, feelings, beliefs, and reactions to a specific subject or area of interest.

Experiments

Research procedures carried out under controlled conditions and based on the technique of manipulating one or more variables in hopes of observing an effect. Typically, an experimental condition is applied to one group, and the results are compared with those from another group (control group) that has had no experimental treatment.

Operationalization

The process of defining a fuzzy concept so as to make the concept measurable and to understand it in terms of empirical observations.

Hawthorne Effect

The effect that researchers themselves may have on an experimental group. The effect is named after an organizational study in which employees were found to be responding to the perceived interest of management rather than to the experimental condition itself.