Viruses. Undead pathogens: the borrower and destroyer of life. (Part 3)
(Image: The Human Immunodeficiency Virus that causes AIDS)
It is this very exasperation of fears, even denial, that makes a pandemic and epidemic a worst case scenario. Assigning, through an expressed human-centric process, a consciousness to these viral compounds, we use terms such as “ruthless” and in its indiscriminate process of infection “brutal” in its “destruction” of human life, but this entity, has no thought nor cares about the plight and suffering of humanity. Its very existence is what virologists and biologists are still trying to grapple with, in understanding the very nature of a virus. Yet, through the ages when a pandemic strikes, it is the shock, that such a hidden, microscopic entity can cause so much havoc. It seems unreal, even supernatural and this is where lies one of the core aspects of the intensity to which a disease can take hold over a society and imprint, without being aware of the consequence, widespread turmoil.
As age old as it is, to quarantine as soon as a viral outbreak occurs, is the only known way to suppress widespread infections. But, it has been the most resisted throughout history. From Cholera riots of the 1800s in Europe, through to misinformation and superstition of plagues and pandemics. Even within the 20th Century of modern medicine, these unknown aspects attributed by fear, have lead to scapegoats and blame, which in turn has always derived from human folly - assiting in the ferocity of a viral pandemic. So there is also a psychological and sociological aspect to the viral outbreak, the inability to understand that possibly our place in nature may need to come into question. Not as antithesis of human existence or even a philosophical study as such, but how we fit, biologically, within the web of life. In the sense, it maybe the human race that needs to adjust to the idea of what it is to live amongst nature.
Which would be mean not submitting to the indifference, despite being apart of nature. That, within our own cellular biology may hold an answer to the virus's enigma. In the first part of this series, we briefly looked at the new sciences of bacterial and viral research and the crucial element bacterium plays in the cellular ecosystem. Biologists have suggested that viruses assist bacterium in forming new DNA, thus adapting themselves to cope within the diversity of environments, to which a viral entity may hold the key. However, despite it being a burrower of life, it has no intrinsic reasoning to further the evolution of humans. So therefor the argument that viruses are a microscopic link within the evolutionary scale holds very little appeal. Scientists and biologists also argue that humans are now becoming more artificial, while not detaching from nature, we are reworking our own physical nature to cope with the natural environments. Vaccines have only be around for 200 years, when Edward Jenner discovered a vaccine for the Small Pox in 1796, after he studied the Vaccinia Virus (cowpox), Jenner was able to create immunity in a 13 year old boy infected with the more virulent human strain. Thus was the beginning of research and mass immunizations against viral outbreaks, particularly against the scourge of Small Pox, that by 1979, the human race, collectivity eradicated the disease removing it from the evolutionary cycle. That controversially samples are held in secure labs in both Russia and America for research. Other diseases that also caused widespread misery throughout our history have also been eradicated and suppressed, such as Polio, Cholera, with Measles being the next target to be destroyed by the human race.
We simply cannot wait or assume that viruses are genetic turning points for bacterium and cell structure within nature. The devastation that they cause is limitless in its purpose of duplicating DNA as they hijack cells. And if we are becoming more artificial, with the newer sciences of molecular genetics, which have further benefited the studies into immunology, genomics and microbiology, so we can stay ahead of the seasonal flu which kills hundreds of thousands of people every year. This maybe the human becoming what the French Philosopher and theologian Peirre Teilhard de Chardin said in his 1949 book The Future of Mankind, of “Trans-Humanizing” or developing a transhuman perspective in coping with what could be considered an acceptance of nature but also aware of its harshness.
Which would be mean not submitting to the indifference, despite being apart of nature. That, within our own cellular biology may hold an answer to the virus's enigma. In the first part of this series, we briefly looked at the new sciences of bacterial and viral research and the crucial element bacterium plays in the cellular ecosystem. Biologists have suggested that viruses assist bacterium in forming new DNA, thus adapting themselves to cope within the diversity of environments, to which a viral entity may hold the key. However, despite it being a burrower of life, it has no intrinsic reasoning to further the evolution of humans. So therefor the argument that viruses are a microscopic link within the evolutionary scale holds very little appeal. Scientists and biologists also argue that humans are now becoming more artificial, while not detaching from nature, we are reworking our own physical nature to cope with the natural environments. Vaccines have only be around for 200 years, when Edward Jenner discovered a vaccine for the Small Pox in 1796, after he studied the Vaccinia Virus (cowpox), Jenner was able to create immunity in a 13 year old boy infected with the more virulent human strain. Thus was the beginning of research and mass immunizations against viral outbreaks, particularly against the scourge of Small Pox, that by 1979, the human race, collectivity eradicated the disease removing it from the evolutionary cycle. That controversially samples are held in secure labs in both Russia and America for research. Other diseases that also caused widespread misery throughout our history have also been eradicated and suppressed, such as Polio, Cholera, with Measles being the next target to be destroyed by the human race.
We simply cannot wait or assume that viruses are genetic turning points for bacterium and cell structure within nature. The devastation that they cause is limitless in its purpose of duplicating DNA as they hijack cells. And if we are becoming more artificial, with the newer sciences of molecular genetics, which have further benefited the studies into immunology, genomics and microbiology, so we can stay ahead of the seasonal flu which kills hundreds of thousands of people every year. This maybe the human becoming what the French Philosopher and theologian Peirre Teilhard de Chardin said in his 1949 book The Future of Mankind, of “Trans-Humanizing” or developing a transhuman perspective in coping with what could be considered an acceptance of nature but also aware of its harshness.
A way of transcending ourselves into a conscious machine like structure, in developing a process of understanding nature, we may need to reconfigure our biology. To survive. As medical science becomes more advanced and molecular in its study, so will the efforts to overcome diseases. A virus may well be an undead pathogen, that borrows and destroys life, however if we are able to draw from its puzzling evolution. Is that it may not be a evolutionary primer as such, but a reminder of our vulnerabilitiy.
Comments
Post a Comment