The unscientific origins of our obsession with viruses (1995)

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118972/ebola-virus-obsession

by nols • 12 years ago

7 4 12 years ago

sytelus• 12 years ago

TL;DR: There is a limit on viruses for how mach contagious, lethal and resistance to treatments they could be. It's like CAP theorem - you can have two of these but not all three. So this in essence, puts all the worries for Ebola and other fiction-viruses like Andromeda strain able to wipe out humanity to the rest and in the "unscientific" zone.

fabulist• 12 years ago

I think its unwise to underestimate nature; what if a retrovirus went undetected at it moved through a large portion of our population, then suddenly turned lethal? Maybe it would be trivial to treat it, but it could still be devastating.

sahyee• 12 years ago

It could happen I suppose, Maybe the right approach is somewhere between ignorance and hypervigilance?

pmiller2• 12 years ago

Not quite. Basically, the virus has to be able to pass itself along before killing you. So, if there's a symptom-free infectious period of time, and the virus transmits easily enough, then you have a problem. Lethality has nothing to do with it as long as the virus can find a new host before using up the old one.

The unscientific origins of our obsession with viruses (1995)

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