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rob05c · 3483 days ago · link · · parent · post: 14th Irregular Occasional Give a Quote from Your Recent Reading
That's not how evolution works. In fact, HIV is evolving to be less lethal, because killing one's host is not conducive to survival. Evolution resembles intelligence, but not consciousness. Romantic, but wrong.
The quote wasn't so much about the evolution of HIV as it was about the earth responding to human super-expansion by producing a response that looks like macro scale immune response. Also The Hot Zone was published in 1994, when HIV was a lot more unknown and scarier.
thenewgreen · 3483 days ago · link ·
Thanks for the link, I didn't realize that about HIV, I only knew we were better at fighting it. It's nice to know that it's evolving to be less lethal too.