(August 24, 2017 at 8:05 pm)Industrial Lad Wrote: There's no reason something would die out unless it was unfit for it's environment. So it makes sense that bacteria would still be around. It's hard to imagine there not being something for it to feed on.
And remember, evolution is directionless, there's no goal. So bacteria that are good at being bacteria wouldn't have to die out.
We now have bacteria that eat nylon. The predecessors didn't, but one of them changed a wee bit, able to digest nylon in tiny amounts. As the amount of nylon increased other food sources are pushed out, and the ones that could eat even that wee bit had an slight advantage. Some of their descendants changed a bit more, and so on. The huge number of generations per day of bacteria allowed this change to occur in a relatively short time.
