basanistes wrote:

"josh" <jillywoodsabc@jillywoods.karoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:wvadndW4ObjU2QvYRVnyjAA@eclipse.net.uk...

At any time we may hear that the bird flu virus has mutated and become a
threat to humans, with the possibility of vulnerable people failing to
survive it.

But what produces this deadly mutation? Does it have the hand of God
behind it, making it an example of intelligent design, or is it a random
mutation as the virus evolves? Or is there a third explanation?

For me the answer is simple, even though I don't know the biological
processes involved: the virus evolves. Its effect on humans is just an
unlucky outcome.

VIrusses quicky mutate, because they are not cells. Cells are much more
stable.

Do you have AAAAAANYYYYYYYYY prove, that virusses, sponanously change
into cells and become more complex live-forms?

(Except from infecting existing cells and merging with the existing DNA
of cells )

Has anybody claimed viruses spontaneously change into cells?

A bird flu virus could mutate spontaneously into a form that could pass
from human to human, it could exchange genetic material with a flu virus
which is already endemic in humans or a different virus could become
either more deadly or more contagious or even both. Or none of the above
could happen this decade. But it is a virtual certainty that at some stage
a new deadly virus will sweep across the planet with the potential to kill
large numbers of people. It is overdue, we have been lucky for longer than
we have a right to expect.

New diseases do spring up from time to time. The most deadly of diseases
seem to spring out of nowhere, kill millions who are susceptible and then
vanish. Killing the host is a bad strategy for a disease, any disease
which kills most of those who contact it is likely to be short lived. Over
time diseases tend to become less severe. Just think about syphilis, when
the (insert name of hated enemy nation here) pox first emerged it killed
people horribly with hideous deformities. By the nineteenth century a
syphilis infection could be carried for years without too many obvious
signs and it was only in the final stages when the victim went mad that
people were sure they had it. Nowadays syphilis is even less acute, which
means it is far more likely to be spread to the unwary than a disease that
causes the flesh to fall from the body within months of the first
infection.
--

Martin Willett


http://mwillett.org/