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Pastimes : SARS - what next? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Henry Niman who wrote (827)	1/15/2004 2:37:15 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1070

Henry, true, getting 10 heads in a row doesn't prove there's a disposition towards heads or an allergy to tails. But correlation is usually a good guide to causation. So much so that people usually confuse correlation and causation. They leap immediately from correlation to causation without bothering to define the mechanism of causation. If there's no defined mechanism, then the causation is suspect. There is no magic, so if there's no mechanism established, then the correlation is probably just happenstance. In the case of bugs, immunity and DNA, we know that bugs depend on genetic vulnerability and usually in a species there are some individuals who have a happy combination of DNA which makes them immune enough for them to go on to reproduce and increase that immunity. Which has been the basis of biological warfare for a billion years with plants for example wielding a vast array of chemicals to wage war against attackers. Immune systems have been waging war against viruses for a long time too. There's an array of DNA built in for confronting various bug types to a greater or lesser extent. Even the most virulent bugs don't get everyone. AIDS bugs for example were defeated by some women in Africa who were found to not get AIDS despite frequent exposure. They turned out to have a hot-stuff immune system which resists AIDS successfully. I'd be amazed if there isn't a DNA design which laughs at sars. It would be nice to know if there are people resistant to sars as they could be offered high-paying jobs in the front lines. Correlation is a good start in finding people who would make good anti-sars soldiers. Finding resistant people and why they are resistant is a good idea. I'd like some of what they've got! Mqurice