10-15-2014: This is a very educational and medically informative and scientifically informative article. Read it. Learn something about the natural, biological, physical science, please. For your information: natural selection, a phrase used in the article, refers to the fundamental biological principle of Darwinian evolution at the level of individual organisms. Sometimes, among paleontologists, Darwinian evolution at the level of individual organisms is called, microevolution, to distinguish it from evolution at the level of vast changes - macroevolutionary changes - on the level of entire species, operating by a different principle, species selection confirmed by something called, punctuated equilibrium. But microevolution on the level of individual organisms, also known as Darwinian evolution by means of natural selection, happens, sometimes often, sometimes not often, by mutation. Mutation means, a genetic change. Mutation sometimes is caused by environmental influences. There is a debate among scientists about what the late evolutionist, Stephen Gould, called, constraints in evolution. Some evolutionists hold that certain kinds of pretty-much inherited constraints more or less built into species, and also the structures of individual organisms, make it much harder for individual organisms to mutate - change. Some scientists hold that the power of such constraints is not necessarily so great. This article provides the perspective of, probably, the main majority of scientists who, more or less, would hold that the power of constraints in evolution for the organism that causes Ebola - a virus - is probably mainly greater than the power of forces making mutations (changes). There are reasonably good scientists who might not hold this view and might be more concerned lest environmental influences might have a greater chance to make the individual virus change (mutate). But the fact that the individual organism seems to have remained pretty much the same for 20 million years is pretty impressive evidence that seems to indicate the organism may remain the same as its remained pretty much for the past 20 million years. So, at least for the moment, probably, a more scientifically conservative approach to the issue seems warranted. That, at least, seems the view of the scientists quoted for this article. This is for your information. However: in my view, a view controversial in bourgeois capitalist society, but a view held by at least some very respectable legitimate people in science, outside influences that make in human history for often terribly catastrophic, cataclysmic, giant changes in lives of human beings in certain environments where human beings live, have sometimes also had the spill-over effect of sufficiently impacting on natural, biological and physical environments to, in turn, make impacts on certain kinds of historically terrible little microorganisms (microorganism defined as a living thing much too small to see with your naked eye, but able to be seen with a microscope, such as either a virus, which is what Ebola is, a kind of virus, or as a bacteria) that might, in some circumstances, cause such microorganisms to mutate (change). One thing is true. Catastrophes in the history of the earth - geological catastrophes, volcanic catastrophes, extraterrestrial catastrophes (such as hitting of earth by other objects in outer space, such as meteors or asteroids), or climate catastrophes, have, indeed, had impacts in the making of evolution on the macroevolutionary (big evolutionary) scale. Indeed, such catastrophes made by natural (nature-made) forces have resulted in a situation in which most of the previous species of life on earth, maybe up to 99% of them, no longer exist today and were wiped out. At exactly the same time, however, the principle of punctuated equilibrium in natural (nature-made) evolution means 2 things. It means long-term equlibrium (sameness, stasis, relatively non-changing character) of most species over long, long, long periods of time. But it also means that in those geologically brief moments (sometimes as little as thousands of years, which in geology is not even a blink of an eye, sometimes into the couples of millions of years), there are the other side of that called, punctuations (major changes) made by some kinds of natural (nature-made) catastrophes. What, however, has happened on earth is, the species, mankind, humans, human beings. Different species of humans have been around for about 2 million years to 3 million years. The species that is now the only species of humans left, us humans, called by scientists homo sapiens, have been around for between 250 thousand years and around 100 thousandy years. And in that time, our species of humans has had an enormous environmental impact on the planet earth. And that impact mainly has been in the past roughly 400 of those hundreds of thousands of years weve been around. So the issue is, is that impact on earth today sufficient to have caused certain kinds of microorganisms - very tiny living things we cannot see unless we have a microscope - that have been around for millions of years to fundamentally mutate or change in some way. That is the issue. There is no disagreement that Ebolas virus is a dangerous, potent, terrible enemy of humans. The issue is, is it more likely to have mutated in, say, the recent past, or not. And for the moment, most scientists seem to be saying, probably not. That does not mean it is not dangerous and not potent. It is. That does not mean that the important precautions constantly stated as being important by leading medical and scientific people are not important. These precautions are important. No doubt about it. But it does mean that probably the virus for this illness has not fundamentally changed - mutated - yet. However: the very fact the virus has gone from its earlier relatively rural isolation into teeming urban city areas in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, is itself significant. It is significant because we live in a modern world on a modern planet earth. We live on a planet where people fly airplanes everywhere all the time. And all those who screech and scream to impose some kind of blockade or quarantine against the peoples of Western Africa are themselves making it more likely, not less likely, for this terrible virus to spread even further. Quarantines on individual patients are a necessary medical precaution in this illness. Educational instruction to communities to not use traditional burial practices or traditional funeral practices with people who have died of this illness is a necessary protection and necessary precaution for preventing this illness from spreading. Importing into the most dangerously affected areas of massive modern health care facilities, health care personnel, doctors, and others, is a very important precaution in the stopping of this illness. So is the precaution justly and rightly demanded by health care workers that the skills and training of health care workers and education and instruction of health care workers in the proper precautions for protecting the lives of health care workers also must be very central in this situation. But screeching for a global blockade against the peoples and countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, is no solution. All that will end up doing is causing people to flee to other African countries. And all that will do in the long run is two things: (1) make this terrible illness a permanent part of life in other African countries; and (2) make it almost certain that from these other African countries, planes flying out of them will lead to people on said planes sooner or later infecting the rest of us in the West. Hysteria is not the right approach. Panic is not the right approach. Education, awareness, information, taking the right precautions, are the right approaches. That having been said, my view is, the countries and governments and peoples of, especially, the 2 main non-capitalist countries of the world of Cuba, and China, should be particularly praised for their much more massive efforts to help the peoples of West Africa in this matter than anybody else so far. Ebola was not deemed a profitable enough illness for the private-for-profit drug companies to invest in in the 1970s. So as a result, no vaccine was made. Now, the private-for-profit capitalist owners of the bloodsucking drug companies are hoping to cash in on the deaths of thousands of innocent people by making some kind of vaccine that, they hope, they can make only in quantities limited enough to insure the profits of the drug companies, and perhaps they hope to make a cure, a treatment, in, again, only such limited quantities as might insure the profits of the drug companies are driven up. But the correct approach is, expropriate - confiscate, nationalize - the drug companies, make them social property of the people, and force manufacturing and production of any and all vaccines for prevention, and medicines for cure, to the highest levels needed by the people, and then distribute them, immediately, to all areas where they are needed. But that cannot happen short of a socialist revolution in property relationships which requires first workers making revolutionary workers parties aiming to make workers governments to confiscate - expropriate, nationalize - the drug companies, the insurance companies, and all banks, corporations, industries, mines, mills, factories, making them the social property of the people. Socialism therefore becomes a fundamental necessity to save humans from destruction. Theres no alternative. Its either socialism or barbarism, as the great early 20th Century socialist, Rosa Luxemburg, put it. - Allan Greene: 10-14-2014: Scientists Rein in Fears of Ebola, a Virus Whose Mysteries Tend to Invite Speculation, by Carl Zimmer, The New York Times, 10-14-2014: msn/en-us/news/other/scientists-rein-in-fears-of-ebola-a-virus-whose-mysteries-tend-to-invite-speculation/ar-BB9aPvz
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 05:29:22 +0000
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