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T. Ryan Gregory 🇨🇦 Profile picture
@TRyanGregory
Jul 7, 2024 • 20 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
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. Fields Virology, Volume 4: Fundamentals, Seventh Edition.
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 It's also why we get already-outdated vs. predictively-designed vaccines. More virus contributes to the evolution of more variants for many different reasons.
This combines with false typological thinking when we hear that "it's all Omicron". Here's reality: Evolutionary tree of SARS-COV-2 variants showing the very divergent and diverse "Omicron" variants versus the others that received Greek letters in 2021.
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. Robin: "Humans have evolved with these viruses for millions of ye--" Batman, slapping Robin: "YOU'RE NOT A BAT!"
Bonus: not understanding that SARS-CoV-2 evolution happens at two levels.

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More from @TRyanGregory

T. Ryan Gregory 🇨🇦 Profile picture
Apr 29
Btw folks, what happened is that Québec saved us all from Poilievre. Bloc voters went Liberal this time to keep him out.

Ontario, not so much. Big gains for the Cons.

BC was where the NDP did best last election, and this time it went Lib and Con.
So, we essentially traded a Liberal minority with progressive parties being very influential to a Liberal minority with a huge Conservative opposition and minimal progressive representation.

The fact that 41.4% voted Con (vs. 43.5% Lib) isn't a good sign either.
Yes, I'm relieved that it's not Poilievre as PM and I'm glad he lost his seat. But beyond that, we're not in a very good place overall. The major rightward shift isn't going to be good, especially when the Liberals eventually lose to the Conservatives.
Read 4 tweets
T. Ryan Gregory 🇨🇦 Profile picture
Apr 1
It's very important to be clear about what is happening in the Canadian election and how progressives need to approach it. 🧵

The LPC surge toward a majority is due primarily to a collapse of support for the NDP and Bloc, and much less so a drop in support for the CPC.

1/ Vote and seat projections for Canada.
Vote and seat projections for Ontario.
Vote and seat projections for Québec.
This means that the Libs are mostly picking up progressive voters who are planning to vote strategically to stop the Cons. They are not picking up huge numbers of "moderate conservatives".

Cons support is generally committed but Libs support isn't.



2/angusreid.org/canadian-elect…
The *winning strategy* for Libs is to make strategic voting by progressives as painless as possible by leaning *leftward*.

The winning approach for progressive voters is to make it clear they cannot be taken for granted and do not agree with rightward drift.

3/
Read 6 tweets
T. Ryan Gregory 🇨🇦 Profile picture
Mar 19
Thoughts on pandemics, inclusion, annexation, Indigenous issues, climate, genocide, and more and the connections I see among them. I fully acknowledge that I am writing this from a position of substantial intersectional privilege.

🧵

1/
I really hoped that the (ongoing) SARS-CoV-2 pandemic would inspire us to make meaningful, positive changes in society. Indeed, early on it seemed like privileged people finally understood what it was like to lack access to things we otherwise take for granted.

2/
Sadly, but perhaps predictably, we instead rushed back to the status quo as quickly as we could. If anything, things are worse now in terms of public health, accessibility and inclusion, and global health equity. Infectious disease has been actively normalized.

3/
Read 10 tweets
T. Ryan Gregory 🇨🇦 Profile picture
Mar 8
Please, stop making these terrible arguments in order to dismiss threats of annexation by the US. 🧵

1. "He's just joking, trolling, negotiating, or being Donald."

Clearly not. Stop it.

1/
2. "Trump can't just declare war on Canada."

He wouldn't bother and he doesn't need to. The last time the US formally declared war was 1942. See every US invasion or occupation since WW2.

2/
3. "The US can't invade because of the constitution / international law."

He doesn't care about either of those things. See everything he's currently doing.

3/
Read 10 tweets
T. Ryan Gregory 🇨🇦 Profile picture
Feb 17
I'm sure infectious disease minimizers are attributing the record-shattering surge of severe flu this year to "immunity debt". Let's think this through, shall we?

🧵

1/
1. Serious mitigations ended more than 4 years ago. Why would immunity debt only kick in now? And why wasn't 4 flu seasons without mitigations enough to repay whatever "debt" there was?

2/
We wrote this more than 2 years ago.

calgaryherald.com/opinion/column…
Read 12 tweets
T. Ryan Gregory 🇨🇦 Profile picture
Feb 16
🧵

Just to recap what is happening, since public health has gone AWOL:

* This is the worst flu season in 15 years. Not just number of cases but number of *severe* cases.

1/
* H5N1 ("avian flu") is getting further out of control in the US. It is getting closer and closer to a human-to-human transmission outbreak.

* Measles is resurgent thanks to low vaccination rates.

* Tuberculosis is making a comeback.

* Many norovirus outbreaks.

2/
* COVID rates are lower than in past winters, but a) they're still way too high to ignore, and b) that's because there was a surge in summer (it's not seasonal) and the next major lineage of variants has not arrived yet.

3/
Read 4 tweets

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