March 12, 2005
| News from the Front Lines >>
Upside to the Plague
Well, that’s handy: Centuries of plague made 10% of Europeans safe from HIV. Also noted: “The plague” was probably not bubonic plague, but rather “a continuing series of epidemics of a lethal, viral, haemorrhagic fever.” Eep.

Posted March 12, 2005 at 2:21 | Comments (3) | Permasnark
File under: Briefly Noted, Society/Culture
File under: Briefly Noted, Society/Culture
Comments
The jury may still be out on the precise nature of "The Plague", but I still love that this may become a classic example of evolution within H. sapiens.
On the downside, imagine you are a Jesusland high school teacher resistant to teaching evolution. Do you just avoid this topic, or is it evidence for why God loves Nordic Aryans?
Assuming our fictional Jesusland high school teacher is sophisticated in his or her creationist/intelligent design theory, then he or she won't have any more trouble accomodating these findings than Linnaeus or Louis Agassiz would have many, many years ago (although Agassiz might well have chalked it up to the superiority of Aryans). Nevertheless, evolution within H. sapiens is not necessarily an issue for the creationist biologist. So long as those who are safe from HIV can still successfully reproduce with other humans then speciation (in the Mayr definition) has not occured and no alarms will necessarily be raised.
Didn't you mean plague is a one cure for HIV AIDS? I mean this is going to be very interesting.