Virolution. Frank Ryan

       FRANK RYAN

       Virolution

       The most important evolutionary book since Dawkins’ Selfish Gene

Copyright

      William Collins An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published by Collins 2009

      Text & diagrams © FPR-Books Ltd 2009

      Frank Ryan asserts his moral right to be identified

      as the author of this work.

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

      Source ISBN: 9780007315123

      Ebook Edition © JULY 2013 ISBN: 9780007545278

      Version: 2018–12–04

To the memory of Terry Yates, for the courtesyand generosity of his help and the inspirationthat gave rise to this life-changing journey.

Science knows no country because it is the light that illuminates the world.

      LOUIS PASTEUR

      Like science, emerging viruses know no country. There are no barriers to prevent their migration across international boundaries or around the 24 time zones.

      RICHARD M KRAUSE

      A relatively small number of investigators have been preoccupied with the biology of viruses … and how they tick; these scientists are more sensitive to the … evolution of their symbiotic relations with their hosts.

      JOSHUA LEDERBERG¹

       Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

       Dedication

       Epigraph

Introduction: A Wind of Change

1: An Enigma from the World of Plagues

2: A Crisis in Darwinism

3: The Genetic Web of Life

4: The AIDS Dimension

       5: The Paradox of the Human Genome

       6: How Viruses Helped Make Us Human

       7: The Implications for Medicine

       8: The Autoimmune Diseases

       9: Cancer

       10: The Wider Dimension

       11: Sex in the Evolutionary Tree

       12: Are We Polyploid?

       13: The Genie that Controls the Genes

       14: The Coming Epiphany

       15: At Journey’s End

       Glossary of Terms

       Index

       Acknowledgements

       About the Author

       References

       About the Publisher

Introduction

       A Wind of Change

       I am quite sure that our views on evolution would be very different had biologists studied genetics and natural selection before and not after most of them were convinced evolution had occurred.

      JBS HALDANE¹

      In the opening line of his celebrated book, The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski declared that ‘man is a singular creature. He has a set of gifts which make him unique among the animals.’ Putting aside the now outmoded sexual conventions implicit in his terminology, our natural instinct is to believe he was right. Surely we humans are unique. We are unique in recognising, at sentient level, our own existence. We have risen above the other animals in the landscape so that, for good or for bad, we now shape and control that landscape. But does this intellectual uniqueness mean that we are so radically different that we should be set apart from all other life in our evolutionary origins, which have governed the very nature of our beings?

      When, on 12 February 2001, two rival organisations