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Bacteria do not mutate directly, in fact, no living creature we know of mutates directly in response to anything. All evolution is random mutation in offspring
by betwixthewires 5y ago
Bacteria do not mutate directly, in fact, no living creature we know of mutates directly in response to anything. All evolution is random mutation in offspring randomly providing fitness to itself and it's progeny above its predecessors and peers. That is what Darwinian evolution is.
- tunesmith 5y agoThat makes sense. You could say that the "lack of vaccination" yields mutations, much in the same way that the "lack of antibiotic" (like people refusing to finish their prescription) can yield antibiotic-resistant bacteria. But in neither case does it "cause" the mutation. It appears that I was improperly influenced by the second comment in this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/ozh9mi/is_the_delta_variant_a_result_of_covid_evolving/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/ozh9mi/is_the_d...