if evolution works why haven't the human not been immune to the common cold?
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Because, like Tuberculosis and other bacteria and viruses, it has evolved.
You truly have no idea how evolution works, do you?
1. The rhinovirus is able to evolve resistance at a much faster rate than humans can involve immunity.
2. There is not sufficient evolutionary pressure to evolve immunity to the rhinovirus; the common cold is an unpleasant and minor inconvenience, not a grave or life-threatening illness that affects one's reproductive fitness.
Viruses are very simple and evolve at an alarming rate when compared to larger creatures, partly because they are very simple and partly because they go through so many generations in a single year. That's how swine flu and bird flu started infecting humans, by evolving.
Because germs evolve, too, and at a faster rate than we humans do due to quicker life cycles.
But if creationism is true, why did God create viruses to cause the common cold and other illnesses? And why do Christians get sick after praying not to get sick?
If I recall correctly from health class, it's because each cold is a different sort of cold, not just the same cold over and over. Once you've gotten over the one cold, you're immune to it because your body knows how to fight that cold. However, the next cold you get is a different cold, and your body needs to figure out how to fight that one. It's under one name because the symptoms for each different version are pretty much the same, and it would be too much hassle to name each new one and then have to explain that it's basically what you got last year.
a) There's no such thing as "the common cold". It's actually several hundred different diseases with similar symptom. Your immune system "learns" to deal with each one (which is why you get better), but then it has to deal with the next one.
b) We're in a constantly-escalating "arms race" with the viruses. It's called the Red Queen effect: "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place" (from Through the Looking Glass ).
Because the cold is evolving TOO, and it's got WAY more generations, so we can't keep up. That's one of those things you fundies don't seem to get; evolution doesn't happen one trait or one species at a time. It's happening to every form of life and near-life all the time, often multiple traits at once.
Holy crap! I majored in English lit and minored in philosophy ... but even I recognized the stupid contained in that question.
Viruses constantly change, so while we're immune to the last cold we caught, we keep catching newly-evolved strains.
Hell, even the bubonic plague evolved; yeah, its descendent viruses are still around, but the symptoms have changed and it's not as bad as it was a few centuries ago.
Some of us are, I don't get colds. my whole life (I'm 52) I do get Flus amd Viruses. I know many people that have congestion, runny noses, aches and pains for weeks.Anything I get like that's over in 24 hours I don't suffer much. and I also know people that don't.
Some people have no reaction to flus or viruses, genetic chance, good genes, luck of the draw
Because with every generation of virus which makes up the common cold it changes ever so slightly, and every generation is a little different than the previous and there are lots of variations in the so called common cold. In other words, it evolves.
Evolution doesn't "work", it just is.
We humans are not really inside the evolution any longer, natural selection is not active. We cure things and remove things that ought to kill the non-adaptable, we use IVF and donors to be able to breed even though nature says we shouldn't.
Plus, the common cold is evolving at a much higher rate than humans ever have.
A better question would be if evolution works, why do we still have stupid people?
Thank golly for you that with most kinds of intelligence comes empathy and altruism.
Please be a Poe. Please be a Poe. Please be a Poe. Please be a Poe. Please be a Poe.
"if evolution works why haven't the human not been immune to the common cold?"
Because... Evolution works. The cold virus evolves as well. At a much faster rate than humans I might add.
c'mon most creationists are at least willing to grant "micro" evolution
get with the program
"if evolution works why haven't the human not been immune to the common cold?"
If God created all lifeforms (and thus there was no change, species-wise), then the Common Cold would have become extinct after humans became immune to the original strain. Therefore the constant mutation of the Common Cold virus is conclusive proof of Evolution. DUUUUUUH?!
Talk about not seeing the wood for the Giant Sequoia forest!
Because the common cold doesn't exert selective pressure. Most people, unless they're already weak, survive the common cold.
However, if you get something like the Black Death going around, anyone who is immune is going to survive, and pass down their genes. That's the delta-32 mutation for you.
*gasp* viruses evolve too!
They also have a higher mutation rate, so they evolve faster than living things.
Honestly, it is not that bad of a question. Humans have evolved immunities to some diseases, but not to others, so curiosity is reasonable. And the author’s usage of a double negative is probably just a dialectism ; a means of emphasis.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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