Yes, the bacteria is still a bacteria - only a fool would expect otherwise. A bacteria doesn’t express error prone DNA polymerase during stress in order to become other than a bacteria - it does so in order to maximize survival.
Now how would expressing error prone DNA polymerase during stress maximize the survival chances of a bacterial population?
Does your total inability to answer trouble you?
It should.
I do believe I’d already answered your question in a previous post. But since you think you are the teacher and I am the student I’m certain it was not the exact answer you were looking for therefore you feel empowered to assign me a ‘failing’ grade - whatever...
You’ll not break free from your brain-washed paradigm as long as you remain spiritually dead.
Scientific naturalism is not really science at all. Didn’t Einstein say something similar w/ regards to science and religion? The problem is evolution is your religion.
Seems to be pretty straightforward. If it did not "change", "it" would die, which it does eventually. But to the more immediate concern, the bacteria "adapts". The real question is how it "knows" it is under stress in order to react to the stress.