Survival of the Sickest Essays

The most recent controversy on American college campuses today, is whether colleges should adopt trigger warnings as a way to protect students from topics of discussion or ideas that may cause them some level of discomfort for instance, a lecture about rape may disturb a student who may have been raped in their earlier life causing the student great emotional disstress. Even though trigger warnings save student from reliving a delicate past; trigger warning should not be added to college classes because students at a college level should be mentally prepared to handle harsh academic course work that may trigger their own difficult past. Trigger warnings blind ones vision to learn the truth about topics that contain disturbing truths, taking

One can claim that influenza is an infection that has victimized people from just about every generation that we have known. The term Influenza comes from the Latin word "influentia", first used by the Italians in the 1600's. It is a highly contagious infection particulary of the respiratory tract.In addition to us humans, influenza can occur in pigs, horses, and several other mammals as well as in certain wild and birds. It can also jump from specie to specie as observed in late 1997 when influenza from chickens was having its effects on people in Hong Kong. Because influenza is highly contagious and spreads easily, it has appeared in our history many a times as epidemics. Influenza is caused by an

Why does evolution allow useless or harmful traits? The book Survival of the Sickest: The Surprising Connections Between Disease and Longevity, penned by Dr. Sharon Moalem and Jonathan Prince, delves into this intriguing question, offering many answers across its eight captivating chapters. This book is a treasure trove of thought-provoking queries, such as why hemochromatosis is prevalent in Europeans, why Type 1 diabetes is often diagnosed in the north, why malaria can be fatal but the common cold is a mere inconvenience, and why we possess so much seemingly “unused” DNA. In Chapter 1, the authors unveil the intricacies of hemochromatosis, a genetic disease in which iron accumulates in the body, and how this seemingly deadly trait proved

“What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger” (p. 28). In the scientific novel Survival of the Sickest by Sharon Moalem with Jonathan Prince, self-acclaimed “Medical Maverick” Dr. Moalem makes in-depth analyses of current human diseases that, ironically, may have led to the survival of mankind in the past. He presents a novel concept that greatly contradicts what have been universally accepted beliefs surrounding biology and the process of human evolution for a long time. With the use of myriad scientific studies and research, he formulates surprising theories about a positive correlation between disease and humanity. Moalem narrates the scientific world’s findings that strongly exemplify his assertions, however arbitrary they may seem at first. Three of the diseases that he examines, hemochromatosis, Type 1 diabetes, and favism, could have been particularly useful for resistance against other illnesses and survival in a historically harsh environment.

David Epstein argues that genetics are the main factor in the story of people's

No autosomal dominant disorders do not skip generations; they pass on through each generation. If parents have a child, their child will receive the same autosomal dominant disorders that the parents had. And the opposite, if the parent don’t have any autosomal dominant disorders, then the child won’t have

Ever since life first appeared on the planet we call home, these organisms have been changing in a process called evolution. Evolution favors genetic traits that helps a species thrive and reproduce and tries to weed out the traits that threaten a species’ chance of survival. Genes that give a survival or reproductive advantage spread through the gene pool faster while genes that do not help a species get less common. This key mechanism of evolution is called natural selection. But even with evolution and natural selection, genetic diseases that make people sick are still in the gene pool after hundreds of thousands of years. So why would this happen? In Dr. Sharon Moalem’s Survival of the Sickest, he proposes that many of today’s deadly genetic

Both normative and nonnormative influences and nature and nurture influences both shed light on human development over childhood and adolescence. The nature and nurture debate refers to whether particular aspects of development are a result of inherited characteristics (nature) or obtained characteristics (nurture). The answer to what characteristics were obtained by which source is a difficult task as there is still much to learn about the way genetic markers work and how their patterning influence organisms. Instead nature and nurture should be looked at as a intricate ecology (Claiborne, Drewery, Paki, & Peters, 2014). This is where characteristics are not considered to have only a single source but can linked to a contribution of our genetic

If you enjoy reading specific blogs such as a feminist or a social justice blog, then you most likely came across the cautious Trigger Warning (TW): a flag content that discusses effects of trauma or can cause a post-traumatic stress reaction and people could then choose if they want to appoint themselves with this material. These trigger warnings are most likely to be related to sexual abuse/assault, military combat, child abuse, graphic descriptions of rape, etc. It basically gives readers a head up beforehand. Trigger warnings ae expanded and have become more complex in terms of including more potentially upsetting or offensive content and displays. Some examples include slavery, suicide, self-injury, drunk driving, drug use, homophobia,

Joe Cross was one made who made a choice, a choice to change. He was over a hundred pounds overweight, had an autoimmune disease that constantly got in the way of his life, and was taking loads of different medicines to fight off all his conditions that were brought on by both the weight and his autoimmune disease. So, this one man started a journey, a journey across America for sixty days drinking nothing but juice. This one man, not only saved his own life, but also through reaching out to others, began to help others begin their own journeys to a healthier, happier life.

The main question presented and answered in the book is why we continue to carry the genes for harmful inherited diseases instead of weeding them out through evolution. The book looks are few different diseases that affect a large number of people and tie them back to some historical event that because of this disease they were able to survive and live longer than their healthy counterparts. The author described this theory in a simple quote:

Be it through evolutionary selection over time or even death, nature finds a way to eliminate unwanted traits. This much being said, many of the costs of disease symptoms, though painful, are necessary evils. Many of these are accidental byproducts of genetic mutation, such as the occasional death linked to the anti-malarial genes predisposing favism or sickle-cell anemia. But there are no accidents in nature, these deaths prevent this mutation spreading into future gene pools. Occasionally over time genes may begin to clash within a creature's modern environment faster than the species can evolve, causing survival to become a challenge that could potentially kill off a species completely. Though its important to keep in mind not always are such drastic measures required- many disorders that are linked to genes provide trade-offs, as they may be the result of mismatches between ancestral conditions and the modern world, and as Moalem proves that disadvantages are necessary to evolve

Heredity – the transmission of traits from one generation to another, from parents to offspring; the protoplasmic continuity between parents and offspring

Much of how an individual turns out to be is not only dependant on the genes in which their parents have passed down to them, but also due to the family structure in which they were raised by.

Human suffering happens every day, everywhere, in many types and ways all around us. We do not always see it, but that does not mean it does not exist. When we do see it exist we commonly ask ourselves, "Does human suffering have meaning?" I can answer this question easily. Yes, it does have meaning. I can answer this because of the four readings we read. However, as I examine this question deeper I see that the four readings have different ideas on "meaning" or the reason for suffering. Looking at the definition of the verb (to) suffer, "feel or undergo pain; sustain damage or loss," we see that suffering is something that can happen because of more than one action. Each of the readings explained a different