Disease and the how it helps us

[C60]

Think about all that diseases do for us they make us sick cost us huge medical insureance premiums and sometimes kill us. So I can see why people normaly asociate disease with bad, that is why we try to cure and and wipe any little spec we see becasue it might have germs on it. But really are germs all that bad? No they are not and if you want to find out why come on in

[C60]

Ok here something that will get some good responses. I think that disease is a vital part of human existence the main reason being that it really limits our population and therefore it is actually slowing down the over population of the earth. If we cure all the diseases just think of the complications.

[Aardvark]

Ok here something that will get some good responses. I think that disease is a vital part of human existence the main reason being that it really limits our population and therefore it is actually slowing down the over population of the earth. If we cure all the diseases just think of the complications.

 

 

Where diseaes is cut through better sanitation, diet and medical treatment people tend to have fewer children. If infant mortality is lower then people are more confident in not needing large families.

 

I suggest you check out the demographic transition model.

[PiLoT]

GENEPOOL: warning, lifeguard is off duty.

 

aardvark, good pt. i would add that lifestyle is a great impact, and in general good lifestyle (which is a characteristic that comes with developed countries who are able to provide such services) means fewer children and more stable population.

 

in ethical standpt, before the boom in medicine, infant mortality was very high and chances that the child would not survive past the age of 5 were high. thus parents did not become emotionally attached to their children at early ages.

 

its hard to find a pt why disease is good...perhaps from the standpt of population control, selection, or research goal? some of this generation's scientist believe that the current burst in research will drastically change the future lifestyle...and who knows some of it may be in a negative way.

[C60]

But think about it this way with disease as a limiting factor the population grows more the more it grows the more food we need the more clothing and every other resources. Even at the rate that we use resources now we have problems thin if the population was doubled think of how much the planet would be strianed then. So to me it is basicly pick your poision the one that kills a lot of people but is a very good limiting factor or the one that starts wars over things like food and water. I say just keep the medical technology we have now and use the money spent on medical research to improve other things problems in our country.

[PiLoT]

c60, i can accept it if we were like deer or bacteria on a petri dish. we would study their growth and study their population overshoots giving little afterthought. mankind strives real hard to reach the apex and the higher it gets the tougher it is to nudge; the harder the problem and the greater the reward of the solution, the harder we strive. Just look at the current depletion of oil supply. there is already an emphasis on alternative resources. for instance (idk too much about physics so dont quote me on this), one of the top programs funded by the DOE is fusion studies --- ie harvest the energy from the abundant hydrogen supply. as little as 1ml of deuterium can replace an entire tank of gasoline.

 

...and when we finally reach there, it would be another inch closer to apex and even more difficult to move upwards. but we all know human mentality

[rakuenso]

disease imho is just another force of natural selection, which promotes a healthy gene pool

[ecoli]

But think about it this way with disease as a limiting factor the population grows more the more it grows the more food we need the more clothing and every other resources. Even at the rate that we use resources now we have problems thin if the population was doubled think of how much the planet would be strianed then. So to me it is basicly pick your poision the one that kills a lot of people but is a very good limiting factor or the one that starts wars over things like food and water. I say just keep the medical technology we have now and use the money spent on medical research to improve other things problems in our country.

 

 

Ok. Then explain this. 3rd world countries (chiefly in Latin America and Africa) Have high levels of disease, yet they still have relatively high population levels. The US, and Europe have a lot less disease AND lower populations.

[Hellbender]

Of course, disease is bad, but remember that natural selection is focused on the survival of the individual's genes. Disease-selected traits can sometimes be harmful in the long run. For instance those with genes for sickle-cell anemia fare well in malaria-infested areas. Those with sickle-cell anemia live longer than those without it when malaria is a factor (damn mosquitos).

[Callipygous]

i think your fighting the wrong points here c60.

you would have better luck (at least with convincing me) if you brought up the fact that all this technology is ruining evolution. normally people with bad eyesight would be cougar food. thanks to glasses we have people running around blind as bats. just think how much better our sense would be as a whole if we didnt do things like this. same thing goes for diseases. diseases weed out the weak spots (malaria/sickle cell aside) in our gene pool. someone has a gene that makes his immune system weaker? oh well, at least he wont be spreading that weakness to future generations...

[rakuenso]

However, in your example,how direct is the correlation between bad eye-sights and genes? To what extent is it also effected by environmental factors?

[Callipygous]

However, in your example,how direct is the correlation between bad eye-sights and genes? To what extent is it also effected by environmental factors?

 

does it matter? so people would gradually evolve with tougher eyes... same idea.

[paleolithic]

disease imho is just another force of natural selection, which promotes a healthy gene pool

 

You said it all for me.

[jdurg]

for instance (idk too much about physics so dont quote me on this)' date=' one of the top programs funded by the DOE is fusion studies --- ie harvest the energy from the abundant hydrogen supply. as little as 1ml of deuterium can replace an entire tank of gasoline.

 

...and when we finally reach there, it would be another inch closer to apex and even more difficult to move upwards. but we all know human mentality [/quote']

 

The problem is that deuterium makes up a teency percentage of naturally occuring hydrogen and you have to spend more energy to isolate the deuterium and create a self-sustaining fusion reaction than you get from the fusion of it. So in reality, that 1 mL of deuterium will cost you quite a few gallons of gasoline in order to make use of it.

[rakuenso]

does it matter? so people would gradually evolve with tougher eyes... same idea.

 

just because its beneficial doesn't mean it will happen.... i'm sure it would have been beneficial if our ancestors had rocket launchers growing out of their arms or to be able to photosynthesize, but that hasn't happened yet has it?

[Callipygous]

just because its beneficial doesn't mean it will happen.... i'm sure it would have been beneficial if our ancestors had rocket launchers growing out of their arms or to be able to photosynthesize, but that hasn't happened yet has it?

 

 

its not whether or not its beneficial, its whether it results in a higher likelyhood of reproduction. if we didnt have glasses then people with 20 400 vision would struggle to get by on a day to day basis. who is going to hire someone who cant see? how will they support themselves? how will they survive to reproduce?

 

i should also note that this is kindof a packaged deal. its not just glasses, its our standard of living. in this day and age a person who cant see does have a way to support themself. (obviously, i didnt mean to say blind people are incapable. not that im worried about having insulted any of them, how would they ever get this message?) but if we were still hunter gatherers who were fighting off the cougars then blind people wouldnt get by. the point is our entire society has changed in such a way so that we are halting our own evolutionary progress.

[Mokele]

Something I'm seeing in this thread is that certain traits (like visual accuity or disease resistance) are "good" or "bad". That's not at all the case. No trait that isn't 100% lethal or 100% sterilizing is automatically "bad".

 

We value eyesight for social and psychological reasons, but that has nothing to do with evolution: the fact that individuals with poor eyesight are not suffering a reproductive handicap is proof that the "bad vision" alleles are now selectively neutral. The same for disease.

 

What makes something selectively good or bad is the environment. Eyes are great for a bird, but a useless waste of energy for a deep-sea shrimp that never sees light anyway.

 

That certain formerly negatively-selected alleles have become of neutral value only sinifies that we are evolving in a different environment. Evolution has not goal, no purpose, nothing long-term. We've altered our environment, and thus our allele frequencies change.

 

Mokele

[rakuenso]

its not whether or not its beneficial' date=' its whether it results in a higher likelyhood of reproduction. if we didnt have glasses then people with 20 400 vision would struggle to get by on a day to day basis. who is going to hire someone who cant see? how will they support themselves? how will they survive to reproduce?

 

i should also note that this is kindof a packaged deal. its not just glasses, its our standard of living. in this day and age a person who cant see does have a way to support themself. (obviously, i didnt mean to say blind people are incapable. not that im worried about having insulted any of them, how would they ever get this message?) but if we were still hunter gatherers who were fighting off the cougars then blind people wouldnt get by. the point is our entire society has changed in such a way so that we are halting our own evolutionary progress.[/quote']

 

if its better for reproduction, why don't we have litters of kids like many other organisms

[Callipygous]

if its better for reproduction, why don't we have litters of kids like many other organisms

 

who said thats better for reproduction? there could be any number of reasons why that isnt the best way for our species. maybe the womb cant support that many well enough to get a reasonable survival rate. maybe that forces them to come out less developed, like rat babies, and we cant protect them from the elements and the beasts well enough when there are that many of them that are that fragile. maybe its our size, elephants dont have litters either. were significantly higher on the food chain than animals that give birth to litters. maybe there is a reason?

[rakuenso]

who said thats better for reproduction? there could be any number of reasons why that isnt the best way for our species. maybe the womb cant support that many well enough to get a reasonable survival rate. maybe that forces them to come out less developed, like rat babies, and we cant protect them from the elements and the beasts well enough when there are that many of them that are that fragile. maybe its our size, elephants dont have litters either. were significantly higher on the food chain than animals that give birth to litters. maybe there is a reason?

 

if our wombs can't support it, then why haven't we evolved wombs that CAN support it? surely we can't be evolving soley for reproductive purposes, more or less the reason we don't reproduce as much is that it will reduce our quality of life.

[Aardvark]

if our wombs can't support it, then why haven't we evolved wombs that CAN support it?

 

Because there is more than one breeding strategy. Some species have many offspring, each of which is individually less developed. Some species have fewer offspring, each off which is more highly developed.

 

It is a trade off. Invest a lot in a small number of off spring, or go for quantity over quality. In the case of humans going for quality rather than quantity has been the winning strategy.

 

surely we can't be evolving soley for reproductive purposes, more or less the reason we don't reproduce as much is that it will reduce our quality of life.

 

Yes, we do evolve for 'reproductive purposes'. Evolution doesn't care about our 'quality of life' it only cares about propogation of DNA.

[rakuenso]

i said SOLEY for reproductive purposes, if quality of life didn't matter why don't we all have nine kids with crappy impoverished life that breed when they are 15 since it surely is possible. Our DNA would still be propagated wouldn't it?

[Callipygous]

EVOLUTION doesnt care about quality of life. intelligence does. we dont live crappy impoverished lives because we dont want to. evolution, by definition, only cares about propogation.

[rakuenso]

Where does intelligence come from? It is a byproduct of evolution itself, it was the intelligence that allowed our ancestors to create tools which benefited our survival. However, even back then they didn't really breed to their max capacity.

[Callipygous]

Where does intelligence come from? It is a byproduct of evolution itself, it was the intelligence that allowed our ancestors to create tools which benefited our survival.

 

and the point is...?

 

However, even back then they didn't really breed to their max capacity.

 

actually, before intelligence came into the picture they probably did breed to max capacity. without intelligence were just like every other animal, which means life is eating, sleeping, and sex.