Survival of the Sickest part 2

            This book is full of information that impacts our society. It shows us that disease isn’t always a bad thing. We actually work together with disease sometimes to keep our population safe. He gives many examples throughout his book explaining all of the advantages that diseases have contributed to humanity. His book helps to answer the question of why things happen, but also how we can use this information. His book is full of instances of how much research on disease has helped us to understand the world of genetics. However, he also makes it clear that there are so many more unanswered questions in the world. We actually only understand a small amount of genetics in the grand scheme of things. He shows us that there are many different and even contradicting theories for so many different aspects of biology. His book merely helps the common person, who isn’t an expert scientist, to understand a bit better the idea of evolution and how it has affected us.

            Moalem presents very convincing and impressive evidence in his book. I agree with just about all of his opinions about evolution. I now understand and fully support the notion that disease has helped more that hurt our species. His abundance of data was so overwhelming that I was lead to the opinion that anyone who disagrees with him and the ideas he produced is and idiot. I now believe that most all illnesses have been chosen through natural selection because they help an organism in some way. I believe that aging fights cancer, diabetes keeps you warm, parasites affect a host’s behavior, and proper prenatal care creates healthier babies.

            Mostly, there are only pros to this concept of “survival of the sickest.” The evolution of disease overall helps an organisms’ defense against deadlier threats to their reproduction and survival. It is highly believable and defendable. This knowledge and theory can help the world in creating newer approaches to things such as viral defense and research and work for a better tomorrow. This new information opens up the door to new discoveries just waiting to happen. By understanding that organisms and disease are not totally at odds with each other and can work together, we can figure out was to utilize this connection and create bigger defenses to threats such as HIV and malaria. We can use this information for extremely advantageous things such as devising new ways to combat infection, directing evolution away from virulence, and opening up new research on related ancestors and close relatives to discover more about internal strategies and mechanisms.

            There are few downsides to the ideas expressed in this book. They can still be challenged by scientists and could even turn out to be entirely wrong (though that is highly unlikely). You could look at a relationship with disease in two different ways. You could optimistically view it as an advantage against threats to our society and see it as a good thing. You could take the pessimistic view also. You could focus on the fact that even though it may help a bit, a disease is still a disease and poses a threat to society no matter what. You could decide to take a viewpoint emphasizing that a disease is a still a disease and can mutate and turn ugly at any moment. Our close proximity with it can be seen as a foreboding crisis rather than a hope for a healthier society. Either way, you still can’t deny that there is a connection between modern organisms and disease. (593 words)