From evolution of species to upgradation of species
By: Pankaj Prasad
Tags: Microbe, Évolution, Darwinism, Virus, Lamarck

This essay is dedicated to biology teachers I met in my school days. Their passion and love for wonders of nature was so infectious and contagious that it left lifelong indelible impressions on students.

Background

Tracking evolution of species has always ignited interest of inquisitive minds. Sages, philosophers and scientists have deliberated on topic of evolution over millennia.

In ancient world, depending on place and environment of origin, two major concepts of evolution of life evolved.

On a major portion of the earth, life survived against all odds as nature was monotonous and harsh, either icy cold or inferno hot. Civilizational thoughts here started believing that only a divine intervention could have created and sustained life in such conditions, which would abruptly end through same divine intervention. That progressive evolution from lower to higher form was also possible, was not pondered upon.

On another part of the earth, nature existed with all possible manifestations indicating rich diversity. There were repeat cycles of seasons. There were species of plants and animals that were beyond compilation. Here another civilizational thought took roots. It found a rhythm in these cyclic processes of nature. A concept of cyclic time ­(kalpa) that contained iterative events of creation and destruction developed here. Modern biologists believe in life’s origin in water as simpler form and later evolution to complex forms on land. Incidentally, concept of Dashavtar, evolution of life, in form and consciousness, from water to land also originated here.

Theories of Evolution

In post renaissance Europe, two theories of evolution, still being read by every school going child, were proposed. In 1802, French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, after observing life around, proposed theory of acquired inheritance of evolution. This was first such attempt to understand organic evolution of life from most primitive organisms to most complex ones. Though he left the question of origin of life unattended.

Five decades later, in 1859, British naturalist Charles Darwin again proposed another theory of evolution in The Origin of Species. He again left the question of origin of life unanswered. Darwin proposed that natural selection was responsible for evolution of species from one type to other. Over thousands of generations, useful traits helping in survival of a member of species, pass on, leading to better and different species. This evolution of different species happened from a common ancestor through natural selection.

Curtsey scientific progress made in biology, transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, the transmission of epigenetic markers from one organism to the next (i.e., from parent to progeny), affects the traits of offspring without altering the primary structure of DNA.

So Lamarck and Darwin were both right in proposing two different theories for evolution of species. Nature was using both mechanisms, passing on acquired inheritance and genetically better characteristics to next generations.

It is quite surprising why schools world over keep teaching students that Darwin proposed correct theory and Lamarck was wrong.

Evolution in 19th and 20th Century

In their long walk on evolutionary trek, humans must have faced frequent incremental challenges and infrequent yet powerful transformational challenges. Some of these challenges must have posed risk to their very existence. One well documented transformational challenge was 1918 influenza pandemic. It is also known as Spanish flu. As the severest of pandemics in recorded history of humans, it wiped out between five to ten percent of world population. As Darwin would have observed, those who survived this pandemic came out better and fitter of species through natural selection.

In 1796, Edward Jenner inoculated for first time, a thirteen year old patient with smallpox vaccine. In 1856, Louis Pasteur patented the process that became famous as Pasteurisation, a method of killing germs and micro-organisms in food, which helped humans avoid life threatening infections. In 1927, Scottish microbiologist discovered first broad spectrum antibiotic penicillin that further helped humans come out of bacteria induced critical illness. Since these initial progress, many antibiotics, vaccines, sterilisation, pasteurisation methods were developed to save humans from microbes.

Evolution in 21st Century

In the game of survival and evolution, humans and microbes have used strategies to outdo each other. Slowly antibiotic driven human evolution started ignoring long term signals embedded in theories of Lamarck and Darwin. However the new game seemingly reached penultimate round in year 2009. Overcoming all possible spectrum of antibodies modern medicine practitioner has in his/her arsenal, a superbug bacteria (NDM-1) was reported in hospitals and operation theatres. This virtually signalled clear defeat of humans by this single cell species in new game of forced evolution.

The story of pasteurisation is at least equally interesting if not more. As humans started storing food for utilisation in scarce times, need to preserve it from rotting appeared. So long as pasteurisation was limited to traditional processes of heating/cooling or adding excess sweet/salt, food remained harmless for both humans and other species. But new pasteurisation techniques involving liberal use of chemical preservatives and feeding antibiotics to animals used as food source killed microbes residing in human intestine. Some of these microbes were considered good for health. As a result, a generation of people grew, who would not think of drinking water directly from a natural spring. Unless this water is collected, pasteurised, bottled as spring water, it remains unpotable. This is second impending defeat of humans in trying to be driver of evolution.

A far more interesting is the third story of viruses when compared to stories of microbes. Viruses are tiny particles siting over the fence where life and death intersect. Since the use of first vaccine by Edward Jenner against smallpox virus, derived from cow (cowpox), innocuous virus as vaccination became norm. Vaccination helped humans fight viruses that caused serious illness. Scientists understood that human immune systems have deep memory and ability to build response to new viruses provided they were forced exposed to weaker form of viruses. Again, viruses slowly became more virulent, and human immune systems became more learned.

21st century has also displayed restlessness of humans as species. A new Windows operating system arrived a bit faster than earlier version. A new model of iPhone arrived in market faster than earlier models. Taking a cue, some American virologists attempted similar faster upgrade in field of virology. For this they needed to bypass, traditional game of one step a time, played by viruses and human immune systems. They forced faster evolution (upgrade) of human immune system by creating and releasing a virus that moved multiple steps in a move instead of one at a time. This event can be compared to a hypothetical situation where Microsoft upgrades users’ computer with Windows10 directly from Windows millennium, without users’ consent. As a result many computers would crash due to legacy hardware in use.

Similarly this forced upgradation exercise of virus, which virologists gave fancy name of gain of function research, has resulted in death of millions of weaker humans and forced survival of fittest ones. To their further astonishment, these much traumatized and upgraded survivors learnt that virus has already upgraded (mutated) to next level. A recently upgraded immune system stood a bit outdated in a matter of some weeks.

This story of gain of function experiment, which hardly led to any (in)visible gains, while losses are stark naked, is the most intriguing and the most interesting one about the evolution of species in the 21st century.