He’s right in that the venom isn’t like a poisonous snake. From the sound of it, the venom works in conjunction with the bacteria. The venom doesn’t kill, the bacteria does, but the venom’s short-term damage paves the way for the bacteria to take hold and thrive.
Based on the paper A central role for venom in predation by Varanus komodoensis (Komodo Dragon) and the extinct giant Varanus (Megalania) priscus", that’s not the sound of it at all:
Huh…it didn’t for my home computer or secure government computer. It’s LiveScience, whatever that is.
I just tried it again and the page briefly loaded, then was overlaid with a big advert purporting to be for IE8, but the ‘download now’ button was going to a url at jdoquocy.com.
They’ve got an assortment of differently-supplied ads on that page - I expect one of them is a bit less than squeaky clean.
What are some examples of individual level selection that could not be considered gene level selection?
This is a pretty substantial aside, but the short answer would be “pretty much all of them”. Dawkin’s “selfish gene” was an attempt to explain altruistic behavior (Dawkins is an ethologist by training; his treatment of genes is often as theoretical constructs rather than the structures they actually are), for which they might work as a theoretical model. But the reality is that individuals live or die or mate as whole; individual genes are not / cannot be selected for/against, except in limited circumstances.
Interesting thread. Iwonder how many generations of animals it takes, for a species to develop a fear of Man?
Supposedly, the animals on the Galapagos Islands are indifferent, or even friendly to humans-how many bad experiences before they learn to avoid us?
A species of lizard whose bite is only venomous enough to give you a nasty case if diarrhea is the commode dragon.