In a message dated 1/24/00 9:58:35, dgobel@doubled.com wrote:
>What are viruses for? What positive contribution to they make to the
>biosphere?
They make more viruses. That's all any replicator needs to do
to continue existence.
The biosphere is neither intelligent nor a replicator, so you
really can't define "good" or "bad" for it. You could say something
was "bad" if it was "bad" for every constituent of the biosphere,
but about the only thing that would do that would be the utter
obliteration of all life on earth.
>To illustrate my question, bacteria often have negative effects, but, as
>colonies of them make our lives possible by assisting in digestion (as I
>understand it).
That might be good for *you*, but it's bad for the detritivores who
die since there's no corpses for them to eat. In any case, the
bacteria exist because they make more bacteria; effects on you
are side-effects or mechanisms to them.
>while i'm at it, what good are mosquitoes?
They make more mosquitoes :-)
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