Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Swine flu and evolution: Why are nearly all deaths in the developing world?

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Some have claimed that swine flu is evidence of evolution. If so, it is not evidence of Darwinian evolution (natural selection acting on random mutation produces intricate structures), which is the money shot in the current government funded system. Flu viruses swap genes, which is easy for them because it’s not even clear that they are life forms (because they don’t do anything other than hijack cells in order to reproduce). Nor do they usually become much different as a result of swapping genes. They are just the viruses they have always been.

Anyway, here is my most recent MercatorNet column on swine flu:

Now that the World Health Organization has declared swine flu (virus H1N1) a pandemic, their first since 1968’s Hong Kong flu, we might consider how it emerged.

But first — Panic Alert: [nonsense avoidance]: People who are not already frail will probably be sick for about 48 hours if they get swine flu. They will not likely die. Symptoms are typical flu symptoms. When visiting anyone in frail health, please observe all sanitary precautions that medical authorities advise, especially if the frail person is in a hospital already. Shouldn’t that tell us something about their state of health?

So let’s not panic. The main message is, in a global society, we cannot have completely different health standards on the same continent. Now let’s talk about two cities — Mexico City and Winnipeg, Canada, where the virus was first identified.

Health care differs greatly between the two. In Winnipeg, every sick person — rich or poor — just goes to “the hospital,” and is examined by a nurse practitioner and/or a physician who can order lab tests and a ward bed — in an isolation unit, if necessary. It’s all tax-supported, so no one goes bankrupt using the system.

But it is all different in Mexico.

Yes, it is a tale of the difference between Canada and Mexico. Read more here.

Comments
Nakashima, ------"I don’t think that is a distinction most people would accept, certainly not Darwin himself!" It is precisely the distinction that people make and what drives the whole debate. I'm beginning to wonder about your conception of evolution given the above statement and the supposed speciation of different colored feathers.Clive Hayden
June 18, 2009
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Mr Lars, I don't think that is a distinction most people would accept, certainly not Darwin himself!Nakashima
June 18, 2009
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Nakashima, surely you know by now that when people say "evolution" they usually mean more than heritable variation and selection. Often they mean processes that are sufficient to account for complex new functions and major new taxa -- which is the only "evolution" over which there is significant public disagreement. Anyone publically using swine flu as evidence for "evolution" implies that they are saying something about the latter. Denyse didn't deny viruses exhibit "evolution" in the trivial sense that you define. You could make the same claim about cars and software, depending on what is meant by 'heritable'. Rather, Denyse says they don't demonstrate Darwinian evolution.lars
June 18, 2009
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Mrs O'Leary, If it is heritable variation and selection, it is evolution, whether or not you call them alive.Nakashima
June 18, 2009
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Denyse,
Some have claimed that swine flu is evidence of evolution. If so, it is not evidence of Darwinian evolution (natural selection acting on random mutation produces intricate structures), which is the money shot in the current government funded system.
I'm glad to see someone point this out---they're still just flu viruses! This so-called "evolution" hasn't produced any novel, complex structures like eyes or appendages. All we are observing here is variation within a kind.herb
June 18, 2009
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