Pandemics Are Part Of Evolution ... And Society

[GuestHouse]

I can't be bothered to go through that whole pandemic thread, so I'll cut to the crux of the matter.

A virus/disease evolves until it finds a weakness in the biology of the a victim species (hence, is subject to and a demonstration of evolution) - it then spreads in the population of that species.

So the evolution of the virus/disease is demonstated

Now for the society side of the argument.

Virus/disease spread via a contact/interaction between and infected individual and a 'yet to be infected' individual. A third 'carrier' may or may not be involved.

So for example, had that virus/diseas spread in a human population of say 5000 years ago, it would have spread as far as the necessary contact/interaction and at that time, asuming no third party carrier, this would have been limited to local geography, since at that time people did not travel great distances.

A pandemic does not occur since the disease is localised in its impact.

That same disease today might, via international air travel, cross continents in days and hence become a pandemic.

A third consideration is 'developed and inherited imunity'. That same disease 5000 years ago would have been met with the developement of local imunity (imunity in the local population). A pandemic can have the same effect, with a global imunity, but there arises the chance of a disease that is dormant, of minor in a local population becoming a pandemic when it is spread to the world popluation via (for example) international travel.

This was demonstrated in the Americas when the common (European) cold anialated native Americans.

And there is a forth impact - Selective breading. We select certain species genes as useful to us, for example 'Chickens' are bread from a very small gene pool. That restricted gene pool is a 'forced' evolution but is also more suseptable to virus and disease.

So the answer is, Pandemic relates to the nature of the spread of a disease, while genetics can and does have an impact on that spread.

Pandemics are not some natural 'reset' to development, they are a natural result of population densities and international travel.

Above all they are nothing to do with God or any other deity, since they do not exist.

And to top it off, if you want to know more about disease and the spread of disease there is a whole branch of mathematics that deals with the subject.

It is the same branch of mathematics that is used by market researches to assess the impact of their advrtising campaigns ...... and it is demonstratebly reliable.

***Thanks, but lets keep closed topics closed***

Edited February 10, 2006 by cdnvic