AIDS and Africa

[alaskaguy]

I have quoted the next to final paragraph of the linked opin:

Villarreal predicts that, without an effective AIDS vaccine, nearly the entire population of Africa will eventually perish. “We can also expect at least a few humans to survive,’’ he wrote. They would be people who have been infected with H.I.V. yet, for some reason, do not get sick. “These survivors would thus be left to repopulate the continent. However, the resulting human population would be distinct” from those whom H.I.V. makes sick. These people would have acquired some combination of genes that confers resistance to H.I.V. There are already examples of specific mutations that seem to protect people against the virus. (For H.I.V. to infect immune cells, for example, it must normally dock with a receptor that sits on the surface of those cells. There are people, though, whose genes instruct them to build defective receptors. Those with two copies of that defect, one from each parent, are resistant to H.I.V. infection no matter how often they are exposed to the virus.) The process might take tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of years, but Darwinian selection would ultimately favor such mutations, and provide the opportunity for the evolution of a fitter human population. “If this were to be the outcome,’’ Villarreal wrote, “we would see a new species of human, marked by its newly acquired endogenous viruses.” The difference between us and this new species would be much like the difference that we know exists between humans and chimpanzees.

Link:
Annals of Science: Darwin’s Surprise: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

[cmoneyr]

No no no, it's not evolution that will create a next generation that is resistant to the HIV virus. It's obviously God deciding that it's time for humans to not get AIDS anymore, so he designs a new breed of human and plants them in Africa, obviously.

Sorry, my Mike Huckabee thread was getting slow.

Seriously though, I haven't read that entire article yet, but that excerpt sounds very intriguing. I wonder how many years/decades we are from an HIV vaccine. Very interesting stuff.

[jdoggivjc]

Originally Posted by cmoneyr

No no no, it's not evolution that will create a next generation that is resistant to the HIV virus. It's obviously God deciding that it's time for humans to not get AIDS anymore, so he designs a new breed of human and plants them in Africa, obviously.

Sorry, my Mike Huckabee thread was getting slow.

Seriously though, I haven't read that entire article yet, but that excerpt sounds very intriguing. I wonder how many years/decades we are from an HIV vaccine. Very interesting stuff.

Your comment might be one of the most derogatory and unresearched comments about those that oppose the overall theory of evolution. Creationists like myself accept as fact microevolution - the natural changing of species to adapt to new environments, or what you evolutionists would call "survival of the fittest." What creationists don't buy is macroevolution - where it is basically argued that an ordered universe is formed "accidentally" out of chaos.

[guitarchitect7]

Well if it helps, I support my ONE campaign. I know its for poverty instead of AIDS specific, but it's all the same in that country. I wear my bracelet everday showing so. It's just a sad ordeal because all it is is other countries showing that they dont care!

[iceclone]

Originally Posted by jdoggivjc

Your comment might be one of the most derogatory and unresearched comments about those that oppose the overall theory of evolution. Creationists like myself accept as fact microevolution - the natural changing of species to adapt to new environments, or what you evolutionists would call "survival of the fittest." What creationists don't buy is macroevolution - where it is basically argued that an ordered universe is formed "accidentally" out of chaos.

I don't know where you are getting your information from, but this isn't anything close to what evolution theory asserts.

[cmoneyr]

microevolution - the natural changing of species to adapt to new environments, or what you evolutionists would call "survival of the fittest."

That is the entire basis of evolution. If you agree to that fact then you are agreeing that life evolved from very simple organisms, into very complex organisms, that would most certainly be in contrast to what most creationists would believe. If "evolutionists" would call it 'survival of the fittest' then what would you call it?

[herbiedoobie]

Originally Posted by iceclone

I don't know where you are getting your information from, but this isn't anything close to what evolution theory asserts.

But, logically, isn't that the evolutionary insinuation?

I mean, there HAS to be an "accident" to start it all, doesn't there?

Unless you ascribe to the idea that the formation of life is inevitable, within a universe, and that starts to look suspiciously like creationism.

[cmoneyr]

Originally Posted by herbiedoobie

But, logically, isn't that the evolutionary insinuation?

I mean, there HAS to be an "accident" to start it all, doesn't there?

Unless you ascribe to the idea that the formation of life is inevitable, within a universe, and that starts to look suspiciously like creationism.

I don't know how much Evolution has to do with the Big Bang Theory, I would say they're two seperate but similar topics, but I would assume most evolutionists would be more in line with that theory rather than a "Creator". However, the resulting evolution of species was most certainly not an accident according to evolution. The evolution from very simple organisms to the complex species we have today was very methodical and was a result of adaptations to different environments and situtations.

[iceclone]

Originally Posted by herbiedoobie

But, logically, isn't that the evolutionary insinuation?

I mean, there HAS to be an "accident" to start it all, doesn't there?

Unless you ascribe to the idea that the formation of life is inevitable, within a universe, and that starts to look suspiciously like creationism.

I’m not sure, but I think we may be talking about two topics simultaneously: the start of life & how life may or may not have evolved afterwards. Evolution does not state anything about how life began. Indeed, from my understanding, science really has no established theory about how life started. But since that start, the theory that biological forms exhibiting favorable (fit) traits survive and multiply is consistent with all empirical evidence and produces useful predictions. The only random part of it is that mutations happen, as we can observe all around us, but the way I look at it survival of the fittest is anything but accidental.

[alaskaguy]

And back to the original topic of this thread.....

A blogger challenges the assertion that the entire population of Africa is threatened by AIDS. He concludes that the birth rate is higher than the AIDS death rate, so the entire population of Africa will not disappear as a result of AIDS.

Link:
By The Numbers: Mad Professor Says One Billion Africans Will Die!

Nonetheless AIDS is a significant issue that somehow takes a back seat to things like the bird flu.

[brianhos]

Originally Posted by guitarchitect7

Well if it helps, I support my ONE campaign. I know its for poverty instead of AIDS specific, but it's all the same in that country. I wear my bracelet everday showing so. It's just a sad ordeal because all it is is other countries showing that they dont care!

See it is not that we don't care, we are just too busy with our own stupid problems to be worried about other countries real problems. We have to worry about wether or not two men can get married, to worry about entire countries dying off.

[cmoneyr]

Stop trying to derail my derailing.

Perhaps the birth rate is greater than the AIDS death rate alone, but the newborn death rate, starvation death rate, murder rate etc. I'm sure more than covers the birth rate. Naturally, everyone in Africa isn't going to die of AIDS, but with the AIDS deathrate so high it would only be a matter of time if you consider all the other ways they are dying.

[guitarchitect7]

Originally Posted by brianhos

See it is not that we don't care, we are just too busy with our own stupid problems to be worried about other countries real problems. We have to worry about wether or not two men can get married, to worry about entire countries dying off.

Exactly! I realize that its another country, but there is no American in the word World. It is quite sad really that this country is so split on some of the stupidest stuff that we can't focus the attention to what really matters in life; LIFE itself! Instead we then ignore DEATH!

[iceclone]

Originally Posted by alaskaguy

And back to the original topic of this thread.....

A blogger challenges the assertion that the entire population of Africa is threatened by AIDS. He concludes that the birth rate is higher than the AIDS death rate, so the entire population of Africa will not disappear as a result of AIDS.

Link:
By The Numbers: Mad Professor Says One Billion Africans Will Die!

Nonetheless AIDS is a significant issue that somehow takes a back seat to things like the bird flu.

Since both the New Yorker and the blog you reference are misrepresenting the original source material, I don't feel too bad about participating in a diversion of the thread A diversion that actually took it much closer to Villarreals main point!

The original paper is indeed about evolution, the AIDS in Africa example is just used to illustrate a larger point, and the prediction of eventual extinction are not Villarreals', but he doesn't cite them so I don't know his source. (Since it is just an incidental example, citing sources for these predictions is not really necessary on his behalf.) Here is the relevant section from his paper:

Why have we not witnessed the evolution of new super-species,
such as other monkeys able to talk or acquire other human attributes?
Clearly, we have been observing evolution only for a very short time.
Yet we can witness what current viruses such as HIV-1 can and might
do to the human population. Without our current culture (a product of
associative learning), we can project what HIV-1 would do to a human
population as is currently occurring in an unrelenting pandemic in
Africa. The projections are simple. Without social or technological
intervention, essentially all Africans would become HIV-1 infected.
AIDS would sweep the entire population and most would succumb to
disease. However, we can also expect at least a few humans to survive.
These survivors will be those who fail to progress in disease and are
persistently HIV-1 infected. Such individuals have in fact already been
observed. These survivors would thus be left to repopulate the continent.
However, the resulting human population would be distinct, and
would have acquired some new and complex characteristics. This surviving
population would now differ from the previously existing
human population in several biologically important ways. For one, it
would be sexually incompatible with any pre-existing human population
since sexual relationships between the two populations would
result in HIV-1 infection and AIDS in the non-selected population.
This would tend to provide a selective setting for the separation of
interbreeding. Another important biological outcome is that the now
resistant HIV-1 infected African population would have acquired a
new set of complex genes that regulated various aspects of cellular
molecular biology and immunology. These would be the HIV-1 lentivirus
genes. Such a gene set would now be available for Darwinian selection
to operate on, applying the potential functions they provide to
create a more fit human population. If this were to be the outcome, we
would see a new species of human, marked by its newly acquired
endogenous viruses, much like the differences we see between human
and chimpanzee genomes. Thus viruses may well be the unseen creator
that most likely did contribute to making us human.

[bostinelosd]

Where did AIDS come from? Yes yes, I know someone started the rumor that it came from apes, but in reality where? Who was the first person to contract it and how? Seems crazy doesnt it. Its the freakiest disease out there.