Evolution Question...

Ok I couldnt think of anywhere this should fit other than here.


I have been thinking a lot about evolution lately, and observing it as well. And I got to pondering.

What exactly causes the change? Like do the genes themselves change or what? I dont understand that.

I use to be very strongly against evolution, and more time I spend in nature the more I realize how very obvious it is. I am not an atheist, but more of a pantheist and believe in a "god" in the way similar to hinduism, like Brahman.

But yeah can someone help me out on that question?

 

The process by which evolution occurs is often called "mutation."

Basically, something random happens. Not entirely random, but ... something screws up, and you end up with a gene here or a gene there.

Most times, if something like this happens, the cell dies, because the DNA no longer functions correctly.

Sometimes, it stays alive, and divides into other cells.

In certain conditions, that mutated gene can be passed on to offspring.

In which, ALL of the genes are affected.

If it's a bad mutation, you might end up with something like down's syndrome, or a missing finger, etc.

If it's a good mutation, maybe your skin will be a little smoother (or tougher), or something.

It's also possible for an amino acid to screw up while handling the DNA, methinks.

And in general, the mutations caused are a product of the environment. So, in an aquatic environment, a mutation that better allows an organism to breathe the oxygen in water would be more likely to both occur and help the organism survive than one that allows it to breathe the oxygen in air.

This process is natural selection. The bad mutations are weeded out and the good ones are, with a long amount of time, incorporated into the grand design.

 

"Basically, something random happens. Not entirely random, but ... something screws up, and you end up with a gene here or a gene there"

Wow, look at the hard proof of the 21 century science! A random change in a high ordered system will cause great damage, an earthquake does not benefit the city, it brings destruction! (The cell is more advanced than a city larger than NYC). Mutation do not bring any kind of new information, it might change an arm come out from another direction or the like but it does not, by any means, change the hand to a golf club or make it into gold; new information is needed for evolution and there is nothing
that can bring that!

Mutations found in some bacterias show a change in the ribosome that acually cause lack of information, and evolution can NOT be based on lack of information.

"If it's a bad mutation, you might end up with something like down's syndrome, or a missing finger, etc."

99.9999999% of mutations are recognized as bad, the remaining one part in a billion is what evolution has to work on. Is this a belief system or modern science?

The famous evolutions Richard Dawkins call upon christians not to be astounished if the statue of the virgin Mary would wave to them since according to Dawkins, "Perhaps all the atoms of the statue's arm just happened to move in the same direction at once-a low probability event to be sure, but possible."

 

If you are a plant or animal breeder, you can see the effects of breeding for mutations or even for certain traits within a generation or two. With annual season plants, within a couple years of breeding, a plant can be significantly altered. If a person did this for long time (probably longer then one human lifetime) a true new species would arise. You can see some of the changes in plants by human breeding. Broccoli, Brussle sprouts, Cauliflower, Cabbage, Kohrabi, Kale and Collard greens are all from the same original plant, but breed for different characteristics. Animal breeding is the same. Dogs are human breed wolves. Look at how different some dogs breeds are. Think how a Chihuahua or a Great Dane came from a wolf.

Random mutations can add information. Look up the research done with Gamma radiation effects on plants. It accelerates the mutation rates. Most mutations are not beneficial but some of them are. The beneficial mutations are then used to breed for that trait. More productive, disease resistant, better plants are the result. This is how some commercial argriculture seed strains are developed. Probably much of the food you are eating was altered in this way at some point, either directly or indirectly because Gamma rays also come from the sun.

 

Go ahead and write this on a Calendar because its the day I agree Cab is 100% correct about something.
Mutations are nearly and almost always 'bad'.
If not LETHAL then DETERIMENTAL and at best 'Benign' or 'Neutral'.
Thats a GREAT and fantastic argument that DEVOLUTION happens.

The easiest way to bluff people around that obvious fact of modern science is to pretend that 'you only need .00000001 to be 'good'.
Wrong.
You need 51% to be 'GOOD' and you still HAVE NOT EXPLAINED where exactly ADDED INFORMATION is coming from.
Even your alleged 'Good Mutation' is a scrambled or reconfigured version of already existing infomation.
NOT ORIGINAL NEW ADDED INFORMATION.

But hey.. evolutionism is totally and utterly deader than dead before even getting there because as Cab pointed out you are LOSING FARRRRRRRRR MORE than you can be gaining.

Want to add 'Millions of Years'.
Ok.
Now its even FARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR more devastating.
Its not a Million times MORE LOSSES.

To the person who is citing Intelligent Design (people using man-made equipment etc) in mutating Genes in plants.
Yes, interesting, using already existing information, an intelligent designer can rearrange and 'mix' the already existing information to create a new combination.
Yes.
Good argument AGAINST Evolutionism.

To answer one of the original posters questions

According to Evo-fundies that is what happens. The genes somehow 'know' they should change.
Somehow they just 'know' what to become, how to arrainge themselves and what they want to morph into.
Never explained how.. they 'just know'.
They will deny this but when you really really press the issue then the answer from them really is that - The Genes just 'know' to do this.
Amazing!

 

Natura, it's basically what Hikaru said. When the DNA is copied before cell division, sometimes there are errors in the transcription, and thus the DNA is changed (a mutation is simply a change in a gene). Often the changes are lethal, sometimes it's neutral, and once in a while it's beneficial to the organism. Both the beneficial and neutral ones are passed along and if these errors are occuring in the sex cells, it will lead to possible differences in the offspring. Natural selection is the non-random survival rate of these random mutations; nature "selects" for the organisms that are the best able to survive and reproduce.

You ask where the new information comes from? Sometimes genes are duplicated, that where you'd normally have one instance of the gene on the DNA, maybe two, or three get copied, sort of like a stutter in the DNA. Maybe some are stuttered but also copied wrong, so you have a whole new gene. Usually it'd be nonsense and wouldn't code for anything (and our DNA is FULL of such nonsense, the majority of our DNA means nothing). But nonsense isn't detrimental so it is passed along. This then becomes a large source of raw material for new genes to form through mutation. Maybe someday that nonsense bit mutates during the copying process and now codes for something, maybe something useful. If you think about, say, all the sperm cells a man creates in his life (billions if not trillions), you can begin to see that there must be mutations in there sometimes, and there's even a chance for them to be passed on. Also consider the time scales allowed, hundreds of thousands of years, or millions. Humans can't fathom those time scales, but just beginning to think of the number of cell divisions in that amount of time is absolutely mind boggling.

And I'm not going to refute Cab or Erasmus point-by-point, but will say that evolutionists don't believe the genes "know" what to mutate into. He's making up nonsense to refute so he'll sound smart. But the funny thing is, he mocks us for supposedly believing that the genes know how to mutate, while he meanwhile believes some mysterious ghost-man up in the sky made humans from mud.

Oh, and "99.99999% of mutations are bad" sounds pretty made up. Cite a source on that, because it smells like BS to me.

 

Erasmus70 and cabdirazzaq, find out for yourselves, do some experimental plant breeding for a couple years then you will know what is going on. You can see it directly and with you own eyes.

Basically what trippinBTM said is what I meant about adding information. Also, as to what is a benificial mutation and a negative one is highly subjective depending on if it is in a natural environment or a breeding experiment. The same mutation that may help an animal in one environment may not be advantagous to the same animal in different environment. A part of a mutant may also be good and further breeding out of the unwanted parts of it can happen to.

 

here's a good source of information:

http://www.origins.tv/darwin/educate.htm


it doesn't have to be a genetic mutation. offspring are slightly different from their parents, the differences that work get passed on to further generations, the ones that don't work die out.

 

Thanks for all of your input.

Even if it is %99.999999999 there is still .000000001% chance that a GOOD one can occur, and given then vast amount of time that it takes for evolution to occur, its possible. But I doubt the number is that high.

 

Wow, look at the arrogance of cabdirazzaq!

How about this: A random change in the weather pattern in the Mid West, will cause great JOY, as it now rains heavily during a drought, and saves the crops.

And also, the cell is NOT more advanced than a city larger than New York City. New York City was designed BY groups of these cells. It INCLUDES human beings, which are made up of these cells.

And even if you were to remove the humans ... there is an incredible computer network that doesn't just end at the limits of New York City. You want want to make it sound as if the cell IS more complex, simply because we don't understand *everything* about it quite yet (though we do know a ton about it).

Mutations, you are right, do not bring new information; and they WON'T change an arm's direction. Nor will they changed the hand into a golf club, or make it into gold.

Why? Because these things *are not practical*.

When organisms are evolving, the practical, beneficial mutations help organisms survive. An organism that has larger gills, or more muscle mass, will survive better than an organism that has small gills, or is very frail.

A full-blown series of mutations, cabdirazzaq, does not happen overnight. It happens over hundreds of thousands of years. (Hence why the Earth has been around for 3 billion.)

And mutations found in OTHER bacterias show a change in the ribosome that actually do cause MORE information.

How do you think human DNA grew to the length it is today from the length it was in bacteria?

You are overlooking one critical statistic:

99.999% of MODERN mutations are recognized as bad.

Why? Because *we are not in a natural system where evolution can be beneficial anymore.*

We have corrupted the Earth. We have poisoned its rivers and polluted its air, dumped oil in the sea, and when it rains, it doesn't just rain water, it rains mercury, and arsenic, even if in small amounts.

THESE things cause bad mutations today. We have isolated ourselves into a society of steel and mortar, and pollution, and in doing so, we have removed ourselves from a beneficial evolutionary environment to one that can only be detrimental to both us an other organisms! These pollutants, combined with the fact that we isolate ourselves from the natural state of the Earth, are the things which cause so many bad mutations: cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis.

In the past, bad mutations were NOT a "99.9999%" chance of happening. Perhaps a 99% chance, but that's still quite small; more than capable of happening EVERY SECOND within the trillions of organisms that were and still are on the planet.

And, yet again, here is the problem with what you say:

This statue WON'T do that. For the same reason that modern mutations won't ever be beneficial. Because the chance of the arm waving is such an infintessimal number, it might as well be considered zero. The arm would break off and crash to the ground as a chunk of marble, before it would adapt more fluid properties and structure, and wave.

YES. It is possible for the arm to wave. NO. You will never see it do that. Because the probability is less than 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%.

Far, far, far smaller than any good mutation has of occurring even in our modern, polluted environment.

Good point.

And the whole point of natural selection is sacrifice. Those plants which do not gain beneficial mutations are the ones that die, and those few plants which do gain beneficial mutations are the onse that survive and reproduce.

Evolution by natural selection cannot occur without devolution also occurring at the same time.

The difference between the two? Devolved organisms die, while evolved organisms survive, thus producing an evolved species.

Go back to statistics class. You need 51% to be good on a 1:1 ratio for good versus bad. If you have a long time (say 3 billion years), you can take a ratio around 0.01%, hammer it out within trillions of organisms every second, and still come out with MILLIONS of BENEFICIAL MUTATIONS (that's right -- go ahead and do the long division) EVERY SECOND.

And if the detrimental mutations die, and the beneficial mutations stay ... and you do this for 3 billion years ... you are going to get a LOT of advanced species.

The new information, where does it come from? The same place new information always comes from: discovery. The information always existed, but it was not arranged in such a pattern as to be of use, whether good or bad. Once the information is arranged in such a pattern, that is where YOU, Erasmus, would begin to consider it "new information" even though it is in fact not new at all.

That information can be arranged in a variety of ways. It can be arranged because of the environment (i.e. the chance of a certain mutation happening in a specific environment, is much greater than in another environment), and once enough information has been arranged in a specific way (such as a protocell), that construct now has the ability to take in more information and re-arrange it. Thus, you end up with single-celled organisms such as protozoans, and those in turn grow into multi-celled organisms, and so on and so forth. And during this growth process, more mutations continue to occur, even if not brought on by the organism itself.

Such is the nature of natural selection.

Have you never read a textbook on this topic before, Erasmus?

A million times more losses, AND A MILLION TIMES MORE GAINS.

If you do the math, you end up with trillions of dead, and perhaps only a million that are better off for the wear.

Such is the nature of natural selection.

I'm sorry, you're a fucking psycho. "Already existing information" arranged in a new combination? WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK NATURAL SELECTION IS?

But you are only going to attribute "already existing information" that isn't patterned, in a world where some kind of higher designer exists?

Cripes. You really are the most predjudiced and blind of all people.

Shut the fuck up, Erasmus. You don't even believe that evolution happened, and you clearly lack an understanding of what natural selection is proposed to even be. You have NO more authority to answer the O.P.'s question than a monkey does.

Thank you for making this a little bit clearer. And you have an excellent point.

It's funny how both of you, Cab and Erasmus, slight us for believing in chance and statistics, both of which are proven to exist, when you believe in some all-powerful all-knowing all-pervading deity whose 2,000 year old book is full of contradictions which can't even be proven.

 

Well said Hikaru!


And another question for you... Do you think if for osme reason every human on this planet died, or we realized how we had fucked up the world and then reduced pollution down to less than 1% of what it is now(probably impossible, but this is just an if..)Do you think the world would go back to what it was before like 300 years ago... or do you think we have did so much harm that it can not be undone...?

 

I think there is no "going back" because nature is constantly changing. It's a sort of dynamic balance. I don't think the damage humans have done is permanant, though. I mean, this world has faced asteroid impacts, global methane fires, and global ice ages. Just 15,000 years ago (a blink of the eye as the Earth figures it), my home state of Michigan was a mile or two under ice. Even when they melted all they left behind was scoured bedrock and piles of glacial till. Within that small amount of time, Michigan went from bare rock to towering old growth forest. Of course most was clearcut in the 1800's. And even though I think that sucks, the ice did the same thing when they advanced into the area. Hell, they did more than kill the forests, they killed everything and stripped the soil away. And in only ten thousand years (probably much less) it was "back" to how it was before. The Europeans considered it "primeval forest"...but it was less than 10,000 years old! The same thing can be said of the redwood forests in California. Not that it's an excuse or reason to cause more ecological damage, but take it to heart, don't despair, because nature has seen worse. Life always survives; changed, perhaps, but always surviving. I don't like what we're doing because we have to live in it, but I know in the long run it's just another phase in Earth's long history.

 

I used to work for a group called Clean Water Action, and just with a few of the things I've seen, there is no way. Realistically, it would be impossible to reduce the pollution that exists today by more than 2%, even if the entire world dedicated its money and resources into trying.

Just look for example; in my home state of Pennsylvania, there's over 7000 pounds of mercury released *in the air* every year. Over the past couple of decades, that's over 100,000 pounds total.

Now, it's everywhere. It's in ALL of the soil. It's in ALL of the rivers in PA (there isn't a single river in PA anymore that you can catch a fish in without having to worry about mercury poisoning).

Because of this poisoning, the autism level has skyrocketed from about 1 person in every 15,000, to 1 in 166. This autism rise, among other things.

And it's increasing every day, and so is the mercury. =\

The main problem? Mercury isn't even the worst threat. There are THOUSANDS of other chemical pollutant threats.

But even beyond all of these threats ... the BIGGEST threat is the fact that, we're only pumping more of it than ever into the environment. We're seeing the world's ecosystem collapse here, and not even heeding the imminent signs of destruction. =\

The only reason I have a different opinion to you, is because, ice, and methane storms, and asteroid impacts ... these only have singular impacts on the environment, and they only temporarily disrupt the balance of elements in the environment. The asteroid impacts scattered them about a bit and brought on a lot of heat; the ice froze everything over. And the methane storms were very common in the primordial Earth environment.

The problem is ... we didn't have an abundance of these thoundands of chemicals, which cause these bad mutations in developing cells and disrupt the development process. These chemicals could ruin it for future species that would evolve via natural selection, simply because the Earth's environment would be so disrupted and polluted that bad mutations would *always* happen to *every* organism, even the ones with good mutations, causing them to all die.

 

nothing causes bad mutations. they just cause mutations. it's not specific like that. And I still feel that the earth is not "ruined". Now, I consider myself an environmentalist in a big way, but I won't go that far. Bad mutations always happening to every organism? Come on dude, come back down to earth.

Which isn't to say i'm not worried about our pollution. It's all very horrible, but mostly from a human centered way. Environmental destruction sucks, but that happens naturally anyways. It's bad when it affects the Earth's ability to sustain human life though. Like it or not, we are human and that is important to us. Of course I care about the rest of the world's life too, and generally don't like seeing the destruction we cause when I know for a fact it's not necessary at all.

You're right, though, stuff like mercury and man-made chemicals is bad, but not permanantly so. Things get buried in silt over time, so even if these things were *always* causing "bad" mutations in *every* organism (they aren't), eventually (could be thousands of years, tens or hundreds of thousand maybe) they'll dispose of themselves. Some will, anyways. I don't know about mercury and whether we or nature can clean that up (ignorance on my part). I know it's like that in Michigan too. I read that 50% of the mercury in the US comes from China, blown on the winds from all their coal plants. So you do have a point that it sucks a lot.

But whatever happens, life will find a way. That is one philosophy you can stand by.

 

Would you consider down's syndrome to not be a bad mutation? By "bad" and "good," I mean "detrimental or beneficial to the organism in question."

Either way, I don't think the Earth is, in all conceivable circumstances, irreparable. I just don't think mankind will ever achieve the technical level required to adequately remove the pollution from the Earth, without leaving Earth and going to other planets and such.

As far as bad mutations always happening to every organism ... the best I can describe it is this.

Considering for a moment, as an accepted truth (which it is not necessarily), the experiment which simulated the primordial Earth environment, and created protocells using electrical sparks.

If you took that jar, and added a drop of mercury, and then a drop of arsenic, and then a drop of MTBE (methyl tertiary-butyl ethe, a gasoline additive), and then, say, a drop of ... pretty much every other pollutant that we discharge into the environment right now ... (thousands of which exist) ...

You would not be able to form protocells in such an environment. The added pollutants would react with the base elements in the jar in such a way that would prevent the protocells from forming.

The protocells already in the jar, would accept those pollutants into the protocell structure (via osmosis or whatever other methods it might happen to have), and those pollutants would result in the deformation and ultimately the death of that protocell.

For the same reason that these substances cause cancer and all kinds of disease and cellular irregularity in humans, it would similarly prevent life (as we know it at least) from coming into existance.

At this very moment, there are hermaphroditic FISH living off the coast of California. The human waste dumped there, with a large concentration of used feminine products like tampons, leaked estrogen into the sea, causing fish to grow BOTH male and female organs, NEITHER of which are capable of actually reproducing any longer.

Pollution, if it gets much worse, is going to do the same to countless other species on the planet, as it did to the fish. And eventually, it may (or may not, depending on how smart we can become) have the same effect on humans.

But here's the thing ... the vast majority of these chemicals, will NOT be removed by Nature or decomposed over time. They're not biodegradable; that's why they're being discharged both legally and illegally to begin with.

Believe me, I wish that the solution to pollution was dilution. But it ... just doesn't work that way.

Even if most of these elements do get buried in silt and such over time, most of them will stay there indefinitely.

As for the China thing ... it's possible. I don't think that the number is that high. I know that Pennsylvania gets about 20% of its mercury from neighbouring states because of wind ... but I am a bit speculative as to how far the mercury could travel in the air. If we do get mercury from China, I doubt that it's such a high number as 50%. But, I admit I don't know enough about it.

What makes me a bit impatient, and fearful, and also pessimistic in this regard, is just one word:

Dinosaurs.

The dinosaurs are an example of how life *didn't* find a way. Which is why I find it to be so imperative that we realize what we are doing and prevent it before something far worse than the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, where quite possibly no current biological constructs could survive.

Not that I'm disagreeing with you for the sake of disagreeing, and I do value your opinion. I just don't have that much faith in humanity, lol ...

 

what causes the chainge? random changes in individual genes do to universal background radiation. then those who'se altered genes are more successful get to breed more often then those who'se aren't. this resaults in the less successful forms eventualy being left behind. so over very long periods of time a lot of these very small chainges accumulate.

we are talking here about very very VERY long periods of time. periods of time so long that all of human history would be so instentaniously brief a flash by comparison as to go by too quickly to even be noticed.

=^^=
.../\...

 

Here is what is REALLY FUNNY:

There are a few gullible people (ok Naive) who are .. lol.. totally suckered into easy acceptance of a little 'trick conclusion' Evofundies tell them:
Goes like this:
"It doesnt matter if 99.9999 percent are bad.. those are discarded and die off ... as long as one or two are good, those reproduce and go on. (usually followed by "multiply by a million times"

Usually students duped into accepting this (never thinking to question it) will repeat this back to me with such smugness that they think its 'lock solid' because it 'sounds so right'.
Its not.
Its so far off the 'reality meter' and its so obvious (when you know) that you would be embarrassed and even outraged at the EvoFundie who handed you that fake gun in the first place.

Think about it for a while.
Then Google for a while too (its tough because Evofundies have stacked the search engines to KEEP YOU AWAY from finding out otherwise).

If I get a chance I will drop in later this week and explain why that "we only need one good mutation" crock-of-shit is just what it is. Shit.

In the meantime, really ask yourself if you want to 'Guffaw' and keep citing that 'as if' its something so obvious and explains it all etc etc.
Thnx

 

I didn't say "humanity" will survive, I said LIFE will survive. We humans won't last forever, maybe we'll go the way of the dinosaurs too.

And the bit about bad mutations is simply this: a mutation is just a mutation. It depends on where in the DNA it occurs as to whether it is good bad or neutral. Those chemicals could, if they mutate in the "right" places, cause good mutations too.

And Hikaru, did you ever consider that life might adapt to these chemicals? First of all, bacteria exist out there to eat almost anything. They're developing some to eat oil slicks, for example. Natural selection and mutations work both ways, yes, our toxins could cause some extinctions, but things could also "adapt around" the problem or even evolve to make use of the toxins. It could end up being just another evolutionary pressure. (God, I sound like an apologist for polluters! But it's worth thinking about anyways).

And once more I'll ask where this 99.99999% number is coming from. It sounds made up. Either cite a source or stop saying it.

 

Erasmus.

Before you let another dumb word come out of your mouth ...

Do. The. Math.

And if you don't believe that 99.999% can be multiplied by several trillion, then prove it can't be.

Until then, shut the fuck up. You don't know Jack™ about what you are talkin about and you are just provoking people by claiming things that are insane.

Erasmus, WHA--??

Cripes, I've had just about enough of this.

Eras--hah hah hah hah hah ...

Stacked? Stacked, the search engines? What the fu-- ...??

Oh Jesus Christ.

You really ARE a lunatic.

I understood what you said, I just don't think that life, as we know it, with the biological structures which exist now, can survive in such an environment.

I mean, if HUMANS, the most intelligent, advanced, and rigorous species on the planet, is contracting sickness because of and ultimately is killed off by pollution ... what other species COULD survive?

(And don't tell me cockroaches, heheh; they may be immune to radiation, but nothing is immune to pollution.)

True, and I'm not refuting that. However, the places where these chemicals cause mutations are not places that can be improved. I'm sure you've never heard of a "good" cancer, or a "good" version of HIV or AIDS. Benign perhaps, but not good.

Even with the potential for good mutations, because of the thousands of pollutants, the number of bad mutations would rise so sharply that any beneficial mutation, or even any combination of VERY beneficial mutations, would still be subject to countless negative mutations that would ultimately kill it.

You do have a point, with the bacteria ... the problem that I see is, say there exists a bacteria which can eat mercury ... that bacteria can't also eat arsenic, and MTBE, and selenium, and whatever else is in the environment these days. It's like removing one toxin out of a thousand; unless you find a bacteria that can eat all of them, it's not going to do much good.

And, even if you do sound like a polluter apologist, it's good to argue both sides, and I appreciate your arguments. =)

To be honestly, I'm not sure which 99.999% you're talking about anymore.

But, I did get some of my evolutionary statistics about abiogenesis from here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

Honestly, I doubt that this is the 99.999% source that you are looking for.

But please clear this up so I can offer an explaination/potential source.

 

Buddy, that's how evolution works. It isn't Mother Nature skipping around putting gold stars on her favored creations' foreheads. It's Mother Nature coldly killing any organism that can't survive in the given conditions. Only those that are prepared or adapt will survive. It's terrible to see babies getting cancer (or fuck, ANYONE getting cancer) but that's evolution. The conditions have changed and we're seeing our species reacting to it.

The shit part is that we caused it, and that it didn't have to be this way.

Well, in a vat that has high concentrations of ALL those chemicals all at once, yeah there'll be problems. But the levels aren't that high everywhere (maybe at a few old mine sites). Elsewhere, a mercury eating bacteria will probably do alright, because the arsenic levels aren't going to be really high there too. They'd survive. And if you're trying to say a bacterium would have to evolve to eat each chemical, well, I wouldn't be surprised if something like that happened. Bacteria evolve so fast and are already incredibly versatile/resiliant.

And hey, removing one toxin out of a thousand is better than none. I try to be optomistic, it's the only way to keep from killing yourself in this world.

Oh, and the request for a citation about the 99.99% number was meant for Erasmus more than you, because he was the first one that said it. I think he made it up.