Bugs as Drugs

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Viruses are commonly thought of as a threat to life. However, there are ways in which they protect it. There is wisdom in this.

Cancer (rapid propagation of cells that have reached a state of decline) is cellular overpopulation that takes up resources and crowds out the young and healthy segments of that population. When this occurs in organ tissue, that organ’s contribution to the system is compromised. The extent to which it is compromised is the difference between life and death.

Viruses, when they invade a body with cancer, retard the propagation of these senior citizen cells and defend against the cancer’s inhibition of their apoptosis (cellular suicide).

At a macro level, perhaps we are witnessing with the “new” coronavirus a concerted effort by the virus community to stem the rapid propagation of the human population (the young) and the inhibition of death (the growing number of the old). A planetary cancer.

In both cases, the virus’s impacts advance the interest of the virus at the same level (micro and macro).

When the virus impedes the cancer in its host, it notionally prolongs the host’s life providing longer term residency for the virus. The compromised immunity of the cancer patient provides better conditions for the virus to thrive and its clones to jump.

When, at the macro level, the virus reduces the number of hosts that are plaguing its biosphere and threatening all life, it is ensuring that cells continue to exist to allow it to propagate.

If viruses were complex organisms like ourselves, we might ascribe intentionality to their modus operandi. They do what they do because it serves their interest in living on.

But viruses are nothing more than protein encapsulated nucleic acids. They’re not even a cell. If this combination of matter we call a virion could reflect on its existence and choose a life path, our entire understanding of the universe would be upended.

The more plausible theory is that combinations of matter that operated in a manner that allowed for their propagation lived on (or, more accurately, persisted) to be studied and discussed while the others ceased to exist.

No creator or designer needed…just time.