This is like the question I’ve always asked about getting sick.
Do you produce extra mucous because your body is trying to get rid of what’s making you sick or does the illness make you produce more mucous in order to spread more easily?
I suspect the serious answer is that we produce mucus and sneezing as a natural response to microbes, and that’s the environment within which microbes have evolved to take advantage of the mucus and sneezing
Pretty sure this is exactly correct. I read the Kurzgesagt book Immune recently and it was a fascinating view into how our bodies are really the result of ancient warfare, with constant oneupmanship between us and the environment.
This is like the question I’ve always asked about getting sick.
Do you produce extra mucous because your body is trying to get rid of what’s making you sick or does the illness make you produce more mucous in order to spread more easily?
I suspect the serious answer is that we produce mucus and sneezing as a natural response to microbes, and that’s the environment within which microbes have evolved to take advantage of the mucus and sneezing
Pretty sure this is exactly correct. I read the Kurzgesagt book Immune recently and it was a fascinating view into how our bodies are really the result of ancient warfare, with constant oneupmanship between us and the environment.
Survival of the fittest does not work with intent.
It does if I kill loads of stuff
Evolution is a loop of random mutations that get reproduced if they randomly happen to give the organism better odds at reproduction.
Some germ gets a little better at spreading via mucous, so it gets to reproduce more because humans make mucous when they get sick