eli5 What would happen if our cells were unable to mutate?

Question

“Your body acquires trillions of mutations every day”

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/your-body-acquires-trillions-of-new-mutations-every-day/559472/

And I understand why most of the time that’s fine.

But what would happen if your cells were unable to mutate?

In: 1

Answer 1

Well, nothing would change. Both in the short term, and the long term, nothing would change (except most cancers would stop being a thing). Long term, this would hault evolution almost entirely. Mutations drive evolution forward, and without new mutations there will never be any new species or new genetic adaptations.