[ema]

> On the other hand, sending life to Mars, due to that radiation, would make it evolve much faster, right?

The bottleneck in evolution isn't mutations but selection events (~= number of organisms).

[harperlee]

Oh, I didn't know that. But wouldn't a larger mutation probability result in more variability and hence quicker findings of improvement paths? (plus avoiding local maxima)

[ema]

Sure more variability means stronger selection, but bigger mutations are less likely to be positive mutations so more selection events need to be spend to get them out of the gene pool again.

[jonnycowboy]

Not anymore, at least with CRISPR.