Virulance, equilibrium and extinction

Great Debates
1

A few thoughts.

Evolution doesn’t optimize animals for the short term. It generally allows animals to exist at the lowest level of optimization where they successfully fulfill their niche and use their resources over the longest period of time.

Humans, and particularly technology and medical technology are all about maximization and optimization.

Now, as separate schools of information there is no conflict, but at the interface between these 2 information sets we can project very interesting, and possibly predictable, behaviors.

The reason that evolution doesn’t optimize creatures for the short term is that it is more affected (overall) by long term changes in systems, and by cataclysmic short term shifts. Most creatures can generally ignore short term, incremental, shifts. The DNA doesn’t readily absorb that sort of information.

But our machines and behaviors do absorb and respond to that information, and they respond to it optimally (or as near as we can figure.)

At the interface between these 2 frameworks data is exchanged. On the one hand we have a highly robust system capable of long term data management that is highly adaptable, even to extreme environmental conditions (especially when we talk about microbiology) and on the other hand we have data that is always maximized but which runs on data systems that are usually centralized and linear, and therefore rather rigid and brittle.

I think the highest level outcome is rather obvious. The robust system will respond more and more effectively as time passes to the maximized system. Virulence of diseases, which go through many generations, will increase rapidly to keep pace with medical technology.

Here’s my debate however… what effect might this have (or already have had) on the ecosystem at large. Are microbes beginning to pose a threat to other animals in any of the few ecosystems where man and technology don’t dominate? Could this arms race with microbiology that we are having be putting every other animal on the planet at a greater risk of dying to infectious diseases?

It seems to me that we are beginning to reach a critical mass in this race. Either we utterly subjugate all data to our tweaking and optimization, or very shortly our brittle, maximized informational constructs will begin to lose the race.

2

Catchy Wins, I don’t really understand your central point.

This may seem a pointless response to give, but I suspect other Dopers might be thinking the same thing.

Evolution and technology both “maximise” and “optimise” is a sense…and both have the issue of “local maxima” (that is, if something does a job well enough, it may take a long time for it to be superceded, even though it is not optimal).

There are obviously differences, but I don’t get what the debate is here.

:confused: If noticing an incremental shift is useful for survival, then it will be selected for.
We’ve evolved to respond to all kinds of tiny shifts in our environment.

Yes and of course this has always been the case. No doubt many species have been driven to extinction party because of the emergence of a new infectious pathogen.
Right now I believe there are microbes threatening the existence of many frog and bat species for example, that apparently has nothing to do with human action (the microbes are nothing to do with us, but the species extinctions might be).

Every animal is in an arms race with microbes. I suppose if there are pathogens that affect humans and other species, then I suppose from the animals’ pov it would be as though the pathogen mutates very fast because any resistence that the animals develop over time is unlikely to keep pace with the human and microbe war.
On the other hand, if a disease affects humans and animals equally then it may well be transmittable between us and the other species. In which case we would probably take measures to ensure that the disease does not spread too far in the animal population.