@farmerman,
farmerman wrote:
I was watching this discussion on TV by the Oxford guys whove developed that vaccine thats going to begin clinical efficacy testing and they were saying that they are also concerned that this thing is going to keep mutating like the Spanish "flu" (for which they never developed a vaccine after 100 years. However, as evolution's consistent lesson has been -- the only thing that counts is to live and breed continue the species. So, like Spanish flu mutated to a much less lethal form, perhaps this will also. (even though virii are not life forms)
"Living and breeding and continuing the species," doesn't just involve maintaining a population of biological bodies; it also involves maintaining 'cultural health,' by which I mean cultural practices that engender good living and avert negative/destructive patterns of harm and degeneracy.
So I think if you look at the cultural behavioral patterns that have evolved since people have had the security of medical/pharmaceutical protection/solutions to infections, birth control, etc., they take less precautions and shirk preventative lifestyle measures like social-distancing and avoiding close physical contact, i.e. because they just take it for granted that they won't get sick and if they do, then there will be a cure and the insurance will pay for it.
So now we are seeing evolution catch up with these antibiotic safety nets because regular infections that used to be kept at bay with habitual social distancing are now finding their way around to lots of hosts who challenge them to evolve by taking anti-biotics, etc.
So at a time like this when we are re-learning to practice social-distancing and hygiene like that's the only weapon we have against pathogen infections, it should be a reminder that all the technologies for safety and health we have developed have their limits and nature is constantly evolving, so we shouldn't (de)-evolve into a species that only thinks about consuming and reproducing because it's not really enough to have a population of caged animals protected from infections by anti-biotics, etc.; they need to have a healthy lifestyle culture that prevents the use of pharmaceuticals and other major interventions. In short, culture should be a strong first-line of defense so that 'the big guns' are reserved for special situations where people cannot deal with pathogens and infections by non-medical means.
Otherwise, we're evolving culturally toward pushing our protective technologies to their limits, and it's hard to imagine that it is possible for humans to do everything they desire without exceeding their technological capability to control the damage that results.