

Prehistoric Gene Reawakens to Battle HIV - amichail
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/08/darwins-radio-prehistoric-gene-reawakens-to-battle-hiv-a-galaxy-classic.html

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amichail
If this cure works out, what impact would it have on belief in evolution?

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jacquesm
Belief ? As in that it wasn't real all along ?

I don't think there is any belief in it. Mostly just people that have made up
their mind after inspecting the evidence, and the evidence is pretty good.

Think of it as 'the best we've got'. And that is of course until something
better comes along. Scientists are notoriously hard to convince of stuff if
you don't show the evidence. Since this evidence - assuming for the moment it
is solid - would have to be inserted in the puzzle somewhere it will probably
lead to adjustment of some of the pieces of the puzzle around it. But I highly
doubt that it would upset evolution in a major way, there is such a vast
amount of supporting evidence for that that it would take a very large chunk
of counterevidence indeed for it to be changed in a fundamental way. Minor
adjustments are to be expected though.

That something is 'pre-history' means that we do not have any accounts about
that period. For all we know we've been 'visited' in the past by something
like this and our genetical heritage still carries a bit of information about
that.

Another analogue to this is that some west Europeans are much harder to infect
with HIV because they had an ancestor that survived the plague times, was
infected but made it through somehow.

I have a bit of an ethical problem with the wording of the article by the way,
it suggests lots but there is actually very little substance that this gene
will in fact prevent people from contracting HIV and / or cure them of it once
they are sero positive. As to 'curing aids' that's a wholly different kettle
of fish.

