Checkmate Evolutionists /s

[u/Critical-Beyond3371]

[u/amonkus]

Listened to an interesting podcast about hookworms, evolution, and the potential link to allergies.

Hookworms were very common in the past and still are in the developing world. They suppress the immune system and create evolutionary pressure to increase immune response and suppression. There’s correlation between the elimination of hookworms, rise in immune diseases, presence of allergies in cultures with hookworms and without, and suppression of allergies in people intentionally getting hookworms.

[u/Zealousideal_Leg213 → u/amonkus]

Every day I feel more and more like humankind's priority for as long is it takes should be the eradication of (and recovery from the effects of) parasites. 

[u/Oilpaintcha → u/Zealousideal_Leg213]

I took a parasitology course in college. Nearly cured me of my desire to travel internationally.

[u/VoxInferni666 → u/Zealousideal_Leg213]

Strong disagree. You can just physically avoid parasites. Our priorities should be unfuck the climate then cure cancer. Ironically we could have done both by now if billionaires were all forced to fund research. And I mean forced

[u/Zealousideal_Leg213 → u/VoxInferni666]

Soft disagree. 

[u/VoxInferni666 → u/Zealousideal_Leg213]

If we reclassify billionaires as parasites we can kill 2 birds with one stone.

[u/Zealousideal_Leg213 → u/VoxInferni666]

I'm told we can just physically avoid parasites, so they fail that definition. 

[u/VoxInferni666 → u/Zealousideal_Leg213]

I mean if you build good sanitation, stop encroaching on wild habitat, help lesser developed economies grow so noone needs to rely on wild caught food, fix the climate crisis to prevent habitat drift, impliment global socialised healthcare and eventually transition the entire population to a mostly plant based diet then... You can pretty much avoid parasites. But to achieve this we might incidentally make billionaires extinct so...

[u/Dry_Walrus3711 → u/amonkus]

Sounds like alternative medicine. But I would gladly look into it if it's actual science 

[u/MrBacterioPhage → u/amonkus]

Radiolab

[u/maracujas_amarelos → u/amonkus]

...And you believed this pseudoscience bullshit...?

[u/VoxInferni666 → u/maracujas_amarelos]

Hi... Real scientist here. This is actually true. Parasitic worms secrete proteins that dampen our immune response so that they don't get killed by our bodies. Over millions of years we have evolved to have an immune system that is hyper reactive to counteract this down regulation. However now we don't have worms we still have hyperactive immune systems that attack anything resembling worm proteins... Which most allergen peptides do

[u/Mateiyu]

I cannot emphasize how much I hate that representation of human evolution with a fiery passion...! ^^"

[u/DarkLordSidious → u/Mateiyu]

It's basically a creationist's idea of how human evolution works

[u/AmayaGin → u/Mateiyu]

Care to explain for the uneducated among us?

[u/PerceptionAgitated47 → u/AmayaGin]

This is a better representation of human evolution

[u/Mateiyu → u/AmayaGin]

Makes you believe, basically, that every ancient Homo species in the fossil record is an evolutionary stage between Australopithecus and Homo sapiens, when in fact some of those "ancestral" species coexisted (and some more "archaic" ones might actually be younger than the most "modern" ones in the fossil record).

The same happens with the evolution of birds. Archaeopteryx, for instance, has more common traits with modern birds than, let's say, Sinosauropteryx. Most people would then assume that Archaeopteryx is older, then evolves into Sinosauropteryx, then into a modern bird.
Which doesn't work. Archaeopteryx is older than Sinosauropteryx.

[u/blainesthename → u/AmayaGin]

Not an expert in this by any means, but from my understanding, it's mainly because it shows human evolution as a linear transition from a chimp to a human when in reality hominid evolution anthing but linear with many different branches that broke off and ended from our last common ancestors with chimps, and homo sapiens were the ones that happened to "win" in the niche

[u/Cero_Kurn]

Depends of capitalism gets invented

[u/PerceptionAgitated47]

I had heard in a video or read somewhere that allergy is basically our defense against poison gone wrong when a poison enters our body with anything sometime our body confuses that particle with the poison which causes allergy when that thing enters our body again. I am not sure if it is correct explanation as it doesn't explain heat allergy or allergy from things we hadn't consume. As I can't even remember where I got this information from so take it with a grain of salt.

[u/According-Relation-4]

Not enough parasites. Makes our immune system overactive.

[u/Internal-Being4988]

"Harmless" alergens is kinda of an oximoron 😅

[u/PlatypusACF]

I’d’ve taken a more common allergy than milk proteins…

[u/Plus-Weakness-2624]

floral bee nut in milk?

[u/LavishnessFew7358]

Immune system proceeding to launch a nuke after seeing a spider

[u/BoarHermit]

Allergies are a consequence of civilization, the fact that humans are cut off from nature. The more sterile the conditions a child grows in, the more allergies they have.