[AndrewC]

OK then - can you explain to me again why bacteria have a gene for an error prone DNA polymerase and why it would be expressed during stress?

Read my answer again and read your statement in post 407 indicating that you understand my answer.

[allmendream]

I posted your answer. If the bacteria didn't “change” it would die. Expression of error prone DNA polymerase introduces changes throughout the genome.

Now you are contradicting your answer to say that the only “change” comes from some “tote bag” ( a very very small “tote bag” of bacterial pseudogenes) of discarded mutations that are then expressed.

Do you see where these two positions cannot coherently coexist in a rational mind?