SARS-CoV-2 provides an unprecedented opportunity to watch evolution occur in real time. It also happens to be showing the pervasiveness of many misconceptions about evolution, even among scientists with limited knowledge of evolutionary biology. Here's a list and explanations. 🧵
Misconceptions about evolution on display with SARS-CoV-2:
1. Typological thinking.
2. Variation seen as noise rather than signal.
3. Teleology.
4. Orthogenesis.
5. Not understanding how natural selection works.
6. Ignoring Orgel's second rule.
7. Myths about human evolution.
1. Typological thinking.
This is the idea that there is a single "type" that represents an entire taxon (as a holdover of pre-evolutionary thinking, we still have a "type specimen" in Linnaean taxonomy).
With SARS-CoV-2, typological thinking manifests in claims that this virus does/doesn't do X,Y, or Z based on there being only a single type set of biological features for the entire group of coronaviruses (or even all RNA viruses generally).
Typological thinking is common among "textperts" who make assumptions about SARS-CoV-2 on the basis of what textbooks say about related viruses -- as though textbooks don't have to be updated frequently as new things are discovered.
Note: there's debate about the history of typological thinking and the narrative presented by Ernst Mayr about it, but beyond that there absolutely is a common issue of assuming there is a single type and ignoring variability. That's our next list item.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
2. Variation seen as noise rather than signal.
Related to typological thinking is the idea that variation is a deviation from the type -- that is, that it is noise rather than the signal. In actuality, variation is absolutely core to biological systems.
Think about how SARS-CoV-2 variant evolution is discussed. Every time a new variant arises, it is treated as surprising, as though this isn't the *expectation* given widespread, unmitigated infections. It's also why we get already-outdated vs. predictively-designed vaccines.
This combines with false typological thinking when we hear that "it's all Omicron". Here's reality:
More about the utterly misleading and un-evolutionary naming of variants.
3. Teleology.
This refers to "goal-oriented" thinking, such as attributing plans, strategies, goals, desires, objectives, or foresight to viruses. Viruses have none of those things. They simply reproduce within hosts and get into new hosts or they don't.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology
For example, teleological thinking shows up when people talk about the virus becoming milder so that it won't run out of hosts. That is simply not how evolution works.
Bad news: viruses absolutely can drive their hosts to extinction and probably have many, many times.
4. Orthogenesis.
A mechanism of evolution presented as a rival to natural selection prior to the Modern Synthesis in the 1930s/40s. It postulates an innate tendency or drive for evolution to occur in a particular direction.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogene…
When people talk about viruses evolving to become mild or seasonal as though this is inevitable and just a matter of time, it smacks of orthogenesis. Again, it is a myth that viruses always evolve toward becoming benign.
mcgill.ca/oss/article/co…
5. Not understanding how natural selection works.
See most of the misconceptions listed in this paper:
evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.10…
6. Ignoring Orgel's second rule.
Attributed to Francis Crick, "Orgel's Second Rule" is that "Evolution is cleverer than you are". I think of this every time someone claims that SARS-CoV-2 is running out of evolutionary space. It is not.
Orgel's second rule comes to mind whenever anyone talks about an "evolution-proof" approach to something, including vaccines or antivirals. It's basically the biological equivalent of claiming to have invented a perpetual motion machine.
7. Myths about human evolution.
You're not a bat and nothing about this has a precedent in human history or pre-history.
Bonus: not understanding that SARS-CoV-2 evolution happens at two levels.
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