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Natural selection is a physical process that is continually exploring the search space for exactly that sweet spot. The fact that it has been over a hundred ye
by frutiger 7y ago
Natural selection is a physical process that is continually exploring the search space for exactly that sweet spot.
The fact that it has been over a hundred years (equivalent to hundreds of millions of “lifetimes” for viruses/bacteriae) since the last pandemic of this proportion that affects humans is a clear indication that humans as hosts must not be all that valuable in terms of natural selection.
- maxerickson 7y agoNo, it's that killing the host isn't a good strategy. There's dozens of viruses that infect us right good and mostly don't kill the infected. They are really hard to get out of circulation, which is 'success' for a virus, it continues to exist. Once we had the knowledge to do so, we destroyed smallpox in short order.
- monocasa 7y agoAdding to this, that's why we see a lot of the really nasty stuff jumping from originally another host species. They evolved to not kill their host, but once they jump over they cause some systemic issue in the new host that they weren't originally 'intended for'. COVID-19, SARS, Ebola, AIDS, etc. all fit in this paradigm.