From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Mon Aug 13 2001 - 13:06:55 MDT
Terry W. Colvin fwded:
>If that's true, resistance will be, for the superbugs, futile. And even if
>it's not true, the supposed `superbugs' provide no evidence at all that we
>have entered a new era of unprecedented malignancy--Gaia `fighting back',
>as some dopes like to think of it. It's just, at worst, a return to
>ecological business as usual.
Except ecological business as usual never used to include
transcontinental flights, modern population densities and food
monocultures. The bugs may be no more virulent than their ancestors,
but they can spread far faster and infect far more. To put it simply,
a plague in the Middle Ages might kill off a city, but would find it
hard to spread beyond that - if it killed its hosts before they got
to the next group of people it was pretty much done for. (OK, that's
a LOT of simplification....)
Also, in EBAU, the virulence of plagues is self-limiting. As noted
above, if they're too virulent they'll kill their hosts before they
spread too far. If they randomly mutate to a more virulent form, that
form's not going to survive. But once you get into the high
population densities and fast travel of the modern world, that
doesn't apply anymore. If one does mutate that way it will still kill
a lot faster, but it can spread fast and far enough to make up for it.
Let's just hope the politicians don't get to ban genetic engineering.
Rachel
ah-CHOO!
--
"But most women, when they feel free to experiment with life, will go
straight to the witches' Sabbath. I myself respect them for it, and do
not think that I could ever really love a woman who had not, at some
time or another, been up on a broomstick."
Isak Dinesen, _The Old Chevalier_
--
Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@mindspring.com >
Alternate: < terry_colvin@hotmail.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: Fortean Times * Northwest Mysteries * Mystic's Cyberpage *
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