As the COVID 19 hysteria is unfolding almost all over the world, many are asking the question:
Where did the viruses come from?
ID proponents, like Michael Behe, have gone on record saying that viruses were designed, in most cases they cause no harm, but their role in nature is not yet fully understood here.
On the other hand, the proponents of Darwinian theory of evolution claim that viruses evolved, because why would an omnipotent God/ID designed something harmful, like viruses? So, viruses must’ve evolved…
While I’d like to keep all options for discussion open, I’m going to focus on the lack of mechanism for viruses to evolve to solve the chicken and egg paradox in this case.
Simply put, viruses can’t replicate on their own and need another organism, like bacteria, to help them to do so…But viruses already contain pieces of DNA or RNA, so the varieties of problems open up, including the chicken and egg paradox.
On the other hand, if viruses are harmful, why the omnipotent natural selection has been slacking off for millions, or billions, of years and not eliminated them, including COVID 19, that has mutated right in front of our eyes, and natural selection failed to see it, again…
Or, another option for natural selection would be to help viruses to evolve to self-replicate, or to evolve some sex organs, as speculated by Allan Miller: Sex – a matter of prospective here.
After all has been discussed on the theme, another chicken and egg paradox will remain in the theory of evolution:
What came first?
Virus with bits of pieces of DNA or RNA? Or DNA or RNA worlds? But, the latter would need some kind of a metabolism world first, which leads to another, separate chicken and egg paradox that the theory of evolution is just full of it…š
But the US Supreme Court stands as a bastion against abuses of the law!
Doesn’t it?
Anecdote alert:
Reading through the comments on several articles I came across one that referenced the situation in Italy. The person posting the comment alleged an associate of theirs was an advisor to a major Italian hospital and that they, Italian doctors, have changed their treatment protocol for the most severly ill. They have concluded at least tentatively, that it isn’t the virus that is directy taking their patients out but rather the cytokine storm immune response. The doctors have now switched from cobatting the virus in these patients to near complete immunsystem blockade on the order of that used in transplant patients.
I did not copy the comment and this is a paraphrased synopsis of the comment. Seems like a reasonable hypothesis and, if true, the resulting data may show some way forward.
Another point. The current push for use of chloroquine and hydroxchloroquine always leads back to the in vitro studies. While there are problems with the studies themselves a more important point is that cells in a dish often do not represent what ocurrs in a intact organisms.
Here is a case in point (also gleaned from the comments section of the articles I posted):
There was in vitro evidence that HCQ inhibited HIV https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8427717
When a randomized controlled trial was conducted, HCQ treatment led to a statistically significant increase in HIV viral load
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3821003/
Cell culture studies have their use and important and critical data can be generated through such research. However, scaling up from what happens in the dish and extrapolating that response to a living organism has its own dangers.
Is this related?
https://www.univadis.co.uk/viewarticle/covid-19-italy-launches-an-independent-trial-on-tocilizumab-715741
They didn’t mention which drug(s) they were using outside of mentioning immunosuppresent drugs, e.g., steroids. That drug, a monoclonal antibody targeting Il6 receptor, would certainly be a candidate for their arsenal.
PeterP,
It does make sense (I am not medically qualified), as I’d heard some while back that an overactive immune response was the issue for many of the cases that go critical. Once cell lysis starts taking place, the immune system becomes temporarily confused (technical term) between self and non-self.
Clinical update: it seems fairly clear that Plaquenil (hydroxychloroquine) and chloroquine do not work, Kaletra (lopinavir+ritonavir) might have a marginal effect, if any, and remsdesivir appears roughly 31% effective (on both time-to-recovery and mortality rate)… not a cure, but better than a poke in the eye…
In other news, my friend who is on chemo cannot buy the antacid she needs because people are hoarding that, based solely off the factoid that high-dose intravenous famotidine is being trialed in Covid-19. WTF?
For the irony-aware, there’s no way to get remdesivir except through a trial or compassionate use protocol.
DNA_Jock,
And if the RNA vaccines work, good luck getting RNA components for anything else …
Allan Miller,
I remember when genetic engineering first hit the public imagination, and companies started selling shampoo “with added DNA”.
Shampoo?
DNA_Jock,
I guess we will have to wait for the snorting lysol studies to come out.