In a cold region, only those with thick, downy plumage survive and reproduce.
It remains to be seen if this resistance is innate, or if some can’t even transmit the virus. This specific coronavirus causes a disease called COVID-19 which can feature severe symptoms including fatal lung failure. It may have jumped species through the exotic meat trade. But to complete its task, natural selection needs to act when your future still potentially involves parenthood. But nothing new was added to the population, so this does not demonstrate how life-forms have evolved into more complicated life-forms. While naive optimists have compared it to the flu, it has already killed far more people than the flu’s annual toll. Our third-best defense is antiviral drugs, which don’t exactly destroy the virus but reduce its impact and give the immune system more of a fighting chance.
Holed up in our homes, we are reaching out electronically and maintaining a supportive community. Like all viral diseases such as the flu, measles, rabies, or AIDS, the best thing you can do to stay safe is to avoid direct exposure to the virus. If we don’t keep it under control, it could easily kill more people globally in 2020 than all other infectious diseases combined. By itself, survival of the fittest is a dead end. ( Log Out / In many ways, this is what natural selection feels like. Most people are willingly taking on huge inconveniences just to block a disease that isn’t even a major risk to them personally.
Your newsletter signup did not work out. When cooperation breaks down, the results can be disastrous. Business people are especially guilty of confusing survival of the fittest with evolution. However, there’s no reason to think that Chinese culture or cuisine is particularly germy or prone to these transmissions. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. The phrase “survival of the fittest“, which was coined not by Darwin but by the philosopher Herbert Spencer, is widely misunderstood. What’s more, although the phrase conjures up an image of a violent struggle for survival, in reality the word “fittest” seldom means the strongest or the most aggressive. On the contrary, it can mean anything from the best camouflaged or the most fecund to the cleverest or the most cooperative. Furthermore, I think we will all draw hope from the way so many have risen to the challenge of SARS-CoV-2. If it had spread among our ancient ancestors before they were writing down history, we wouldn’t have any evidence it had ever happened. ( Log Out / Just about every kind of behaviour that most of us regard as “unnatural” turns out to be perfectly natural in some nook or cranny of the animal kingdom. Survival of the fittest has been claimed to justify all kinds of things, from free markets to eugenics. This isn’t like the plagues of the past in terms of evolution. This war is ours to win. So elaborate mechanisms have evolved to maintain cooperation and suppress selfishness, such as cellular “surveillance” programmes that trigger cell suicide if they start to turn cancerous.
Is killing your brother or sister fine because nestlings of many bird species do it? Most of the people who die are elderly, and nearly all of post-reproductive age. So far this year, over 180,000 people have died from COVID-19, including 48,000 Americans. You can also sign up for our free print newsletter (US only).
Thank you for sharing this, it touched my heart in so many ways.
Originally published in Creation 13, no 4 (September 1991): 50.
Survival of the fittest, term made famous in the fifth edition of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, which suggested that organisms best adjusted to their environment are the most successful in surviving and reproducing.
Survival of the fittest has been claimed to justify all kinds of things, from free markets to eugenics. Sign up to read our regular email newsletters, The “fittest” can be the most loving and selfless, not the most aggressive and violent. But just in case, here are a few details. ( Log Out /
In the broad sense, this is nothing new. We are in a constant coevolutionary war against infection, in which genetic differences are frequently beneficial. Guilty relief when a good friend survives, even while you know others are perishing. Science with Sam, Don’t Miss: The Wonder Book of Geometry is full of pretty surprises. The world needs more people like you, so a big thanks to your grandmother for the role she played. No matter how bad it gets, the pandemic isn’t the end of the world.
Superorganisms such as bee or ant colonies consist of cooperating individuals.
Until we know more about this virus and have more tools to fight it, we all need to close our doors and stay isolated. Looked at from this point of view, the concept of the survival of the fittest could be used to justify socialism rather than laissez-faire capitalism. Such notions still have a powerful grip in some circles. The choice is ours.
Of course, a few resistant individuals won’t change the overall trajectory, and all the shutdowns are absolutely still necessary. And the bigger point is, for all that COVID-19 has upended our society, it can’t touch our biological legacy.
Malaria alone has driven several of the most pronounced adaptive differences among human populations. We don’t have a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, but scientists are working on it. I think we will be much more prepared, and unwilling to tolerate lollygagging. The story of our species, in fact the story of multicellular life on Earth, has been first and foremost one of battle against infectious disease. Internet Explorer is no longer supported. Hastily constructed new defenses are kludges that carry costs. SARS-CoV-2 is a virus that first infected humans at the end of last year, in China.
I appreciate your positivity. Forget Rambo, think Einstein or Gandhi. It’s heartbreaking. Even if COVID-19 itself hasn’t been a selective agent, mutations that previously thwarted other microbes may be useful again. These studies have been quick and cursory and merit a hearty degree of skepticism, but in a few months we’ll have more solid data. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Privacy Policy and Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. But really, this is a lucky scenario. Over the next few years, I predict we will wisely invest in backup medical supplies, widespread surveillance, and basic infectious disease research. There have certainly been some stupid decisions that got us to this point. Our second-best defense against viruses is vaccination. But loss is always sad. We know that many folks don’t get sick. This ‘natural selection’ can thus result in a thin-feathered type in hot regions, and a thick-feathered type in colder regions. She regularly mailed us letters and packages, even the local comics pages, when we were thousands of miles away. Fear and uncertainty about the future. But it’s not. She ensured that everyone in her circle felt connected. The search for the origin of life: From panspermia to primordial soup. A perfect viral niche. You probably already know more about coronaviruses than the average biologist did six months ago. Nature doesn’t have to call all of the shots anymore. That makes COVID-19 different from the various scourges that have shaped our DNA.
She lived a full and successful life. Just like my grandma, many of us will sacrifice our time and sweat with minimal complaint to provide the best possible life for those around us.
Again, we don’t have many treatments for this particular disease, but new developments are underway. The microbiome: How bacteria regulate your health. You must understand the meaning of the TERM; It has NOTHING to do with animals, bugs , plants, monerans, minerals or their behaviors . Please follow the instructions we emailed you in order to finish subscribing. We can see the bigger picture and serve our whole species, not just our own lineage. It was not deliberately engineered. This video is unavailable. Epidemiological models that assume everyone is equally susceptible could be oversimplified. ( Log Out / Should we plan for regular 'circuit-breaker' coronavirus lockdowns? For all that I’m fascinated by natural selection, I don’t want it anywhere near my family. And when we fail to take sensible precautions and people die, those battles are our losses. It just happens, natural selection is not something that can be or should be implemented. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google 'Survival of the Fittest' is not Evolution.
As this virus conquers the globe, my experience is far from unique.
In any case, what happens in nature does not justify people behaving in the same way. When cells in our bodies turn rogue, for instance, the result is cancer. Meanwhile, nature is getting a taste of the communal human spirit.
Yet even though such examples expose the utter absurdity of appealing to what is “natural” to judge right from wrong – the naturalistic fallacy – we seem to have a strange blind spot when it comes to evolution. If the next outbreak is actually a real nightmare, the kind that kills kids, how will we respond? Evolution never stops, but it’s unpleasant when it acts quickly. Then again, the success of social insects could be used to argue for totalitarianism. Imagine a pair of wild geese coming off the Ark. Is murdering your children fine because mice sometimes eat their own pups?
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