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If this pans out, I wonder what the conspiracy nuts who claim HIV and AIDS were created to wipe out non-white races will do. Of course, the anti-evolution folks will ignore all this since evolution — even in viruses which would imply all organisms up to humans — doesn’t exist.
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) responsible for most of the AIDS cases in the world infected people approximately 100 years ago, more than 20 years earlier than previously believed, according to findings presented here this week at the Evolution 2008 meeting. Its lesser known cousin, HIV-2, jumped into humans decades later, from a monkey species that carried the virus for just a couple of hundred years, not the millions of years researchers had assumed, according to other research presented at the meeting.
Researchers are trying to pin down the origins of both HIVs to understand how often new human viruses emerge. Both arose from simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) of other primates.
[…]
By comparing the two sequences with more recent ones, Gemmel was able to show that HIV-1 first entered humans about 1908, not 1931, as earlier analyses with just the 1959 sample found. Her analysis also indicates that the virus existed in low levels in humans until the middle of the 20th century. “That matches the rise of population centers,” Gemmel explained, suggesting that urbanization around that time paved the way for the AIDS epidemic.
#30 – bobbo,
It’s an interesting question. Sorry, I guess I started to answer the first question and then forgot to go back to read the rest of the post.
I heard some years ago that there was just a single vial left of smallpox virus. I have no idea how true that was, someone else could have been keeping a vial in some other country. Who knows?
Anyway, they were discussing exactly that issue. They had two main points.
1) Is it immoral to deliberately kill the last members of a species, even a virus?
2) What if we need this to make a vaccine one day because the virus comes back, i.e. we were wrong about this being the last vial?
Obviously, the second question is purely practical. We would need the virus to make a vaccine.
However, I did find it interesting that the first question was being asked. I don’t know the answer, personally.
I don’t believe all life has equal value. I believe the life on this planet to be a continuum from incredibly simple organisms like filoviruses (ebola and marburg) up to sperm whales with 20 lb brains and other extreme creatures, including us.
Still though, I do not know whether it is OK to kill the last of a species. I’d probably keep it around myself. If nothing else, I think point 2 about needing it if we turn out wrong about having eliminated it is fairly important.
And, remember, I don’t hate individual humans. So, I don’t want more people to suffer the fate of my friend who went from 25 to 97 years old in just 2 years.
It’s humanity as a whole I hate, for our causing of the sixth great extinction on this planet and our ineffectual efforts at even attempting to solve the issue despite its having been recognized for many years now.
We are a catastrophe.
Like the frozen smallpox vial, would it be OK to kill us off completely to save so many other species on the planet? I don’t know whether it would be moral for another species to wipe us out as a deliberate action.
However, I would support a voluntary effort to do so on our own part. I’d rather see it happen voluntarily by attrition than involuntary as we over harvest our resource base. Thanks for the lead in to plug, yet again, The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, of which I am a proud member.
I’ve never had a beef with you Scott, and mean no disrespect: It seems to me that any member worth his salt would need to do his own part.
I truly hope you never practice what you preach my friend.
#32 – tcc3,
You should check out the site. They do not advocate suicide only not breeding. I assume that is the point on which you have made an incorrect assumption.
In that, I do practice what I preach.
I am a proud holder of the Golden Snip Award.
Don’t worry about me. I plan to do what I can to live a full life and hope to die as painlessly as possible when my time comes.
I do not advocate that anyone else do things any differently. Even VHEMT takes members who already have children, provided that they agree not to breed further and not to encourage their children to breed.
So, tell me, am I doing my part?
#31–Scott==of course the virus should be destroyed==along with anything and everything else that would threaten our species==like religion and republicans.
No reason to let the little critter get loose 1000 years from now because the label gets rubbed off and people get curious.
The second reason must be restated? If we need a smallpox virus to make an anti-body because smallpox has reappeared–we just go get it from where it has reappeared?===probably a different strain anyway?
How you make thinking human beings the equivalent of unthinking un-self aware lower beasts is simply Walt Disney of you. The ONLY thing that makes “nature” beautiful or the earth beautiful is that WE ARE HERE to appreciate it.
Got the moral appreciation of swiss cheese.
#34 – bobbo,
I think you need to reread the comment to which you replied. In it, I said:
So, most of your comment, especially your final insult, is complete and utter garbage.
As for keeping it around for vaccine production, I didn’t make that up, the medical staff having the debate did. I don’t know why they feel it is easier to make a vaccine from an already isolated virus than to first isolate it from a most likely dead body. But, they do. Perhaps they’re mistaken. I’m willing to take their word for it.
There are some very interesting moral questions though regarding species-cide. For example, there are 300 north atlantic right whales left in the world. Does each of them have greater value than, for example, minke whales that are fairly numerous? Tough call.
When an individual of each species is side by side, both are intelligent, both would seem to have roughly equal value. Would you kill a few minkes if they are outcompeting the right whales? Again tough call. When an entire species is threatened it changes the equation somehow. And yet, it does not change the individuals in any way.
Luckily, we don’t seem to have to make this decision. Though we are not entirely sure why the right whale is not recovering, the biggest problem appears to be ship collisions. I know that a right whale has greater value than a ship.
No. I do not have the morals of swiss cheese. I just recognize complex moral issues as being just that. You, on the other hand, seem to have a problem with complexity and need to see everything as very black and white. It isn’t.
BTW, I like the way you threw in destroying religion and republicans. However, this is another complex issue. How do you kill off the idea of religion without killing the religious people? How do you kill of the idea of republicans without actually murdering those so stupid they can look at Bush and still vote republican? Even here, the issue is gray.