"when I began as the seed of my parents, all the information was already there for me to develop to a baby, child, adult. I am sure that I wont develop into anything else, and there is no evidence that my descendants will, however many millennia you might envisage."

If your mother had used thalidomide you might have been born legless, armless, or even a totally different creature, viable or not.

It's about mutation Pete and it has taken place unpredictably and randomly since the first appearance of life, and will continue to happen until the sun destoys the solar system.

It can produce new variations which are indeed very different and over time ( we are talking Eons here) become new species.

Many of these are non viable and die out, but a very small number survive and propagate.

There is your microbe to man progression and it is an advanced form, if you like, of natural selection on the genetic scale.

There is plenty of evidence for the effect in people affected by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs and the offspring they produced.