To me the question is not whether viruses exist. Of course they exist. Bacteria exist, and so do a gazillion other critters, and also we exist. But what are they, do we have any idea what they might actually be doing in bodies that are sick, versus bodies that are healthy? Do we have any ideas that involve befriending, or at least, respecting the tasks they have undertaken for themselves?
To me the question is whether you can take a whole concept of "clinical disease" OUT, and slot IN "virus" as a fully explanatory replacement. This is what has happened in medicine, where doctors used to "name" diseases after characteristic clinical pictures built up from signs and symptoms. It is only lately that we have substituted naming the "critter" (which sometimes we find with a test, but just as often we fail to find), AS IF it is a sufficient substitute for naming a clinical disease.
In the same way the ecological question would be whether you could take the whole concept of "disrupted ecological web" OUT, and slot IN "weed" or "pest" or "invasive species" as if that were a fully explanatory replacement.
Actually we are often discovering that "weeds", "pests" and "invasive species" are part of an ecology's healing process, and that a simple kill-the-critter approach is simply never going to restore health to the ecology as a whole. Still, there are whole industries catering to people's fear and loathing of "weeds", "pests" and "invasive species" with poisons and other "kill the critter" methods.
In the same way, might we someday discover that viruses and bacteria are playing "healing" roles in the context of a disrupted physiological ecology, that, like the soil, our bodies "call out" for the ministrations of specific viruses and bacteria, and that our simple kill-the-critter approaches will never restore full health to us, either?
These are possibilities worth pondering, are they not?
no subject
To me the question is whether you can take a whole concept of "clinical disease" OUT, and slot IN "virus" as a fully explanatory replacement. This is what has happened in medicine, where doctors used to "name" diseases after characteristic clinical pictures built up from signs and symptoms. It is only lately that we have substituted naming the "critter" (which sometimes we find with a test, but just as often we fail to find), AS IF it is a sufficient substitute for naming a clinical disease.
In the same way the ecological question would be whether you could take the whole concept of "disrupted ecological web" OUT, and slot IN "weed" or "pest" or "invasive species" as if that were a fully explanatory replacement.
Actually we are often discovering that "weeds", "pests" and "invasive species" are part of an ecology's healing process, and that a simple kill-the-critter approach is simply never going to restore health to the ecology as a whole. Still, there are whole industries catering to people's fear and loathing of "weeds", "pests" and "invasive species" with poisons and other "kill the critter" methods.
In the same way, might we someday discover that viruses and bacteria are playing "healing" roles in the context of a disrupted physiological ecology, that, like the soil, our bodies "call out" for the ministrations of specific viruses and bacteria, and that our simple kill-the-critter approaches will never restore full health to us, either?
These are possibilities worth pondering, are they not?