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Re: Extinction scenarios


> In a message dated 8/19/98 7:07:26 PM, Betty Cunningham wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Nice term, decimate.  This is what virulent organisms often do, take
nine-out-
> of-ten individuals out of a populate (as smallpox did to the Native
> Americans).  Still, the ever-variable immune system is prepared for this,
and
> the remaining one-in-ten proliferate to produce a disease-resistant
> population.  

I believe that decimate means to reduce by one in ten, not nine out of ten.