Are we hamstringing evolution by hiding from viruses???

So much of human evolution is powered by us trying to keep up with the viruses we encounter..

So much that it is theorized that the reason for the length of any creatures life span is how long it can live and still change enough to keep up with how fast viruses evolve..

How much does modern medicine hamstring that???


A certain percentage of the evolution of our immune systems require viruses to kill off the percentage of the population that is not immune to it, so only the immune systems that can handle the virus are passed on ..

So wouldn’t there be a price to pay for avoiding them rather than letting our immune systems learn to cope with them???


It seems to me that our immune systems would not keep up?

For sure I could have a fundamental misunderstanding of how all of that works, but if not....


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So when the whites killed the native americans with small pox, was it just evolution?

ArtemisBarca said:

So much of human evolution is powered by us trying to keep up with the viruses we encounter..

So much that it is theorized that the reason for the length of any creatures life span is how long it can live and still change enough to keep up with how fast viruses evolve..

How much does modern medicine hamstring that???


A certain percentage of the evolution of our immune systems require viruses to kill off the percentage of the population that is not immune to it, so only the immune systems that can handle the virus are passed on ..

So wouldn’t there be a price to pay for avoiding them rather than letting our immune systems learn to cope with them???


It seems to me that our immune systems would not keep up?

For sure I could have a fundamental misunderstanding of how all of that works, but if not....


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Click to expand...

We are evolved to be hunter/gatherers on the African Savanna where we would use our superior endurance and heat tolerance to run down game over long distances and club it to death. That in a nutshell is the natural state of man. Point being, we have long ago moved away from typical natural selection pressures, so I am not sure why anyone would freak out over our embrace of modern medicine.

SouthernDemocrat said:

We are evolved to be hunter/gatherers on the African Savanna where we would use our superior endurance and heat tolerance to run down game over long distances and club it to death. That in a nutshell is the natural state of man. Point being, we have long ago moved away from typical natural selection pressures, so I am not sure why anyone would freak out over our embrace of modern medicine.

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This. Its also why “it aint natural” is dumb as hell as an argument.

99percenter said:

So when the whites killed the native americans with small pox, was it just evolution?

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Yes...


Just like when the plague killed off every almost every European who was not immune..


Science doesn’t care about right and wrong.


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SouthernDemocrat said:

We are evolved to be hunter/gatherers on the African Savanna where we would use our superior endurance and heat tolerance to run down game over long distances and club it to death. That in a nutshell is the natural state of man. Point being, we have long ago moved away from typical natural selection pressures, so I am not sure why anyone would freak out over our embrace of modern medicine.

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I did not say “natural state” there is no natural state as the state is constantly in flux..

Nor am I freaking out over modern medicine..

The skills needed to survive in a Hunter gatherer culture are nothing like the ones needed for a modern society..


The skills our immune systems need to survive battle with the viruses the planet produces have not changed..

If our immune systems were in a totally new environment, requiring totally new skills you would be right, but we are still swimming in the same pool we always were immune system wise


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ArtemisBarca said:

So much of human evolution is powered by us trying to keep up with the viruses we encounter..

So much that it is theorized that the reason for the length of any creatures life span is how long it can live and still change enough to keep up with how fast viruses evolve..

How much does modern medicine hamstring that???


A certain percentage of the evolution of our immune systems require viruses to kill off the percentage of the population that is not immune to it, so only the immune systems that can handle the virus are passed on ..

So wouldn’t there be a price to pay for avoiding them rather than letting our immune systems learn to cope with them???


It seems to me that our immune systems would not keep up?

For sure I could have a fundamental misunderstanding of how all of that works, but if not....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Studies show that allergies and asthma are increasing in part due to our obsession with cleanliness. Mostly increases in the cities, not so in the rural areas. Kids need to get dirty, it builds life long immunity. But it only works if they are allowed to get dirty as kids.

Waddy said:

Studies show that allergies and asthma are increasing in part due to our obsession with cleanliness. Mostly increases in the cities, not so in the rural areas. Kids need to get dirty, it builds life long immunity. But it only works if they are allowed to get dirty as kids.

Click to expand...

I’m sure to mess this up because of how long ago this happened.... but I used to work in a fine dining joint and had a repeat regular who was a local ER doctor...great guy.

Well one day during random conversation he mentioned that in the 60s the US gov decided to wage war on kidney failure. So dialysis clinics popped up on every corner.

This created all kinda defects that previously did not really exist.

His very own daughter had an advanced case of diabetes. Concerning her he pointed out that before modern medicine no one with the bad version of diabetes you are born with survived to reproduce and pass on that gene.

I heard that rant 20 years ago... so might have screwed a bit up and or merged the diabetes and kidney failure part..

But the base point is solid... as we speak there are diseases that would not exist because the patient zero “shouldn’t” have passed on the gene.


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ArtemisBarca said:

For sure I could have a fundamental misunderstanding of how all of that works, but if not....

Click to expand...

Yes. You do have a fundamental misunderstanding of how it works...

How much does modern medicine hamstring that???

Click to expand...

Modern medicine is what allows us the healthiest time in human history and our longer life spans.

It is exactly that which is allowing humans the time and space to evolve.

SouthernDemocrat said:

We are evolved to be hunter/gatherers on the African Savanna where we would use our superior endurance and heat tolerance to run down game over long distances and club it to death. That in a nutshell is the natural state of man. Point being, we have long ago moved away from typical natural selection pressures, so I am not sure why anyone would freak out over our embrace of modern medicine.

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But Karen on Facebook told me vaccinations make kids dumb and 5G antennas give frogs gay cancer.

ArtemisBarca said:

So much of human evolution is powered by us trying to keep up with the viruses we encounter..

So much that it is theorized that the reason for the length of any creatures life span is how long it can live and still change enough to keep up with how fast viruses evolve..

How much does modern medicine hamstring that???


A certain percentage of the evolution of our immune systems require viruses to kill off the percentage of the population that is not immune to it, so only the immune systems that can handle the virus are passed on ..

So wouldn’t there be a price to pay for avoiding them rather than letting our immune systems learn to cope with them???


It seems to me that our immune systems would not keep up?

For sure I could have a fundamental misunderstanding of how all of that works, but if not....


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Click to expand...

this looks like a job for genetic engineering

Are we hamstringing evolution by hiding from viruses???

Nope, just redirecting it.

Waddy said:

Studies show that allergies and asthma are increasing in part due to our obsession with cleanliness. Mostly increases in the cities, not so in the rural areas. Kids need to get dirty, it builds life long immunity. But it only works if they are allowed to get dirty as kids.

Click to expand...

This one s true but deadly diseases are different.

Are you willing to become immune to a rattlesnake bite by getting repeatedly bit?

I have been bit, and I avoid with a passion ever letting it happen again...

jamesbyoung said:

Are we hamstringing evolution by hiding from viruses???

Nope, just redirecting it.

Click to expand...

And those that don't avoid it are getting stupid out of the gene pool...

ArtemisBarca said:

So much of human evolution is powered by us trying to keep up with the viruses we encounter..

Click to expand...

What timeframe are we talking about?
I ask because it seems you might think we can evolve our species to become resistant to COVID-19 in the space of a few months.
That would mean your understanding of human evolution is seriously uninformed.
Virii can evolve in short timeframes.
Advanced species, not so much, which is why mammoths and dinosaurs no longer roam the planet.

Evolution for advanced species takes thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of years.
The human species might evolve into one which is resistant to most forms of coronaviruses but it's much more likely that the entire species, or up to 90 percent of it, might get wiped out before evolution ever even gets a chance to adapt.

But perhaps you're okay with that, too.
Some folks think it would be exciting to see ninety percent of the world wiped out in the span of a couple of years.

ArtemisBarca said:

So much of human evolution is powered by us trying to keep up with the viruses we encounter..

So much that it is theorized that the reason for the length of any creatures life span is how long it can live and still change enough to keep up with how fast viruses evolve..

How much does modern medicine hamstring that???


A certain percentage of the evolution of our immune systems require viruses to kill off the percentage of the population that is not immune to it, so only the immune systems that can handle the virus are passed on ..

So wouldn’t there be a price to pay for avoiding them rather than letting our immune systems learn to cope with them???


It seems to me that our immune systems would not keep up?

For sure I could have a fundamental misunderstanding of how all of that works, but if not....


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Click to expand...

Basically, vaccinations sort of do what you are suggesting; we are doing safe practices to buy us time to get a vaccine.

Jason Warfield said:

Basically, vaccinations sort of do what you are suggesting; we are doing safe practices to buy us time to get a vaccine.

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Fair enough..

Added in edit..

I lied maybe lol..

But we are not removing the substandard immune systems...

So you are right about vaccines but might only be half the “normal” scenario

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99percenter said:

So when the whites killed the native americans with small pox, was it just evolution?

Click to expand...

I think that was biological warfare.

Do you think this is also biological warfare?

SouthernDemocrat said:

We are evolved to be hunter/gatherers on the African Savanna where we would use our superior endurance and heat tolerance to run down game over long distances and club it to death. That in a nutshell is the natural state of man. Point being, we have long ago moved away from typical natural selection pressures, so I am not sure why anyone would freak out over our embrace of modern medicine.

Click to expand...

In some ways, yes and in others, no.

The age demographics of this disease seem pretty specific.

I'm no researcher, but it seems very obvious that a 90% share of fatalities occurring in a 15% share of the population points at something significant.

What is it that young people have "on board" that old people lack?

It "feels" like this might be a promising track for research to pursue. I've heard absolutely NOTHING about this being pursued, though.

The fatalities attributed to Coronavirus separate almost exactly along the lines of fatalities not attributed to Coronavirus. I've seen this reported nowhere.

I wonder WHY it has not been reported.

Bodhisattva said:

Yes. You do have a fundamental misunderstanding of how it works...



Modern medicine is what allows us the healthiest time in human history and our longer life spans.

It is exactly that which is allowing humans the time and space to evolve.

Click to expand...

A) how do you know I have a fundamental misunderstanding??

Obviously from your post you do not know what part I am fundamentally misunderstanding...

“Nah uh” is not a counterpoint..

B) I have zero problem with modern medicine..

C) humans managed to evolve just fine without modern medicine, so your “space to evolve” point is ridiculous.

Harsh conditions fuel evolution not AC and healthy living.


D) you sure you don’t fundamentally misunderstand all of this lol??


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Waddy said:

Studies show that allergies and asthma are increasing in part due to our obsession with cleanliness. Mostly increases in the cities, not so in the rural areas. Kids need to get dirty, it builds life long immunity. But it only works if they are allowed to get dirty as kids.

Click to expand...

I wonder if your thoughts on this help to explain why the cities are hit so hard while the rural areas are not.

Checkerboard Strangler said:

What timeframe are we talking about?
I ask because it seems you might think we can evolve our species to become resistant to COVID-19 in the space of a few months.
That would mean your understanding of human evolution is seriously uninformed.
Virii can evolve in short timeframes.
Advanced species, not so much, which is why mammoths and dinosaurs no longer roam the planet.

Evolution for advanced species takes thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of years.
The human species might evolve into one which is resistant to most forms of coronaviruses but it's much more likely that the entire species, or up to 90 percent of it, might get wiped out before evolution ever even gets a chance to adapt.

But perhaps you're okay with that, too.
Some folks think it would be exciting to see ninety percent of the world wiped out in the span of a couple of years.

Click to expand...

The Virus seems to kill those that are old much more easily than those that are young.

It could be that our species already evolved to fight this Novel Virus, but the immune response just goes away as we age.

The 15% of the population aged 60 and up suffers 90% of the fatalities from this virus. Same rate as every other COD that cause fatalities to that age group in non-virus times.

Now that our life expectancy has increased by about 40 years, we might be aging our way right of the evolved protections.

99percenter said:

So when the whites killed the native americans with small pox, was it just evolution?

Click to expand...

There is a smart way of hiding from a pandemic and a dumb way of hiding from a pandemic.

The smart way of hiding would be to reverse quarantine, for example, those most susceptible to Covid separate and protected from everyone else. The smart way would be to concentrate on cases where Covid is the underlying cause of hospitalization and/or death. The reverse quarantine would actually protect those most vulnerable to Covid, preserve hospital resources and save more lives compared to socially distancing, for example.

The dumb way of hiding from a pandemic would be to socially distance ourselves...In essence to separate our family units from others' family units. The only way for social distancing to protect the most vulnerable to Covid is if the social distancing is a lockdown type of social distancing.

Social distancing doesn't differentiate between the asymptomatic to Covid, those with slight enough symptoms to Covid to not need a hospital and those highly susceptible to Covid. Before the germination period of Covid has passed in a lockdown social distancing environment, there is a chance of death in the lockdown social distancing because everyone is grouped together in the lockdown.

Since emphasis is on spread of cases with social distancing, the crisis is artificially longer. Since lockdown social distancing is unsustainable, eventually everyone is at risk of Covid exposure once the lockdown inevitably ends. People of all types of Covid susceptibility are still grouped together so NO ONE is protected from Covid exposure. Since, inevitability, no one is protected from Covid exposure and that crisis is artificially longer due to emphasis on cases of spread because of social distancing, MORE PEOPLE WILL DIE using social distancing to combat Covid than, for example, reverse quarantining the most susceptible. After lockdown social distancing inevitably ends, hospital resources AREN'T spared...Governments (unless that government is authoritarian) and economies, for examples, are destroyed.

Social distancing should only be used to hide from or combat a pandemic if there is no other way to hide from or combat a pandemic.

Science/medicine is part of our evolution.

Now if you completely leave that entire giant part out then the OP makes a little sense.

Waddy said:

Studies show that allergies and asthma are increasing in part due to our obsession with cleanliness. Mostly increases in the cities, not so in the rural areas. Kids need to get dirty, it builds life long immunity. But it only works if they are allowed to get dirty as kids.

Click to expand...

Those studies refer to children growing up in that environment, not societies engaging in it for months.