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To: Heartlander
They blasted the bugs with enough gamma rays to kill 99.9 per cent of them, let the survivors recover, and then repeated the process. During the first cycle just a hundredth of the lethal human dose was enough to wipe out 99.9 per cent of the bacteria, but after 44 cycles it took 50 times that initial level to kill the same proportion.

This doesn't prove evolution. This proves that resistance to radiation follows a lognormal distribution (or something close) within a given population. The article doesn't say anything that I see about that ability being passed on to future generations. Only that harsher treatments on the same set of microbes got diminishing results. Interesting, but it is about mortality in a population, not about whether that is passed along ot future generations. That can be hypothesized, but such a hypothesis is not supported by this data.

34 posted on 09/26/2002 5:56:06 PM PDT by TN4Liberty
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To: TN4Liberty
The article doesn't say anything that I see about that ability being passed on to future generations.

What do you think 'cycles' means?

35 posted on 09/26/2002 5:58:30 PM PDT by Nebullis
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To: TN4Liberty
This doesn't prove evolution….

I do not see this as proof of evolution. I see this as proof of speculation, quick conclusions, and dogma within the scientific community.

I am no ‘theory of common descent’ advocate.
Actually, I was curious to see how the ‘theory of common descent’ advocates would respond to one of their own – that is the scientist in this article – Pavlov.

I’m just ringing the bell for him :)

47 posted on 09/26/2002 6:40:14 PM PDT by Heartlander
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