Re: Opinion: How much do you know about evolution?

In message <cJOdnXmfrt2twzLanZ2dnUVZ_tuonZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Dana Tweedy <reddfrogg@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes
Ben Standeven wrote:
Ye Old One wrote:
[...]
5. When Europeans came to the Americas, why did 90% of the Native
Americans die of European diseases, but few Europeans died of American
diseases?

I always wondered about this. Is it because the Old World had a higher
population? Because the New World was inhabited by colonists from the
Old World, not the other way around?

According to Jared Diamond's "Guns Germs and Steel", it's because Europeans depended more on livestock, and had developed resistance to the diseases acquired from pigs, cows, etc.

It seems to me that there are several contributing factors, including all those 3, and more.

[...]
11. Why do people of European descent have a fairly high frequency of
an allele, which, in the homozygous condition, confers resistance to
HIV infection?

I dunno; I would expect it to most prevalent in Africa, since AIDS is
most
prevalent there.

IIRC, it's because of the Black Plague, which tended to produce a population more resistant to disease.

DJT

The allele is CCR5-delta32. The explanation is that selection for a specific disease (both smallpox and the Black Death are suggested) coincidentally selected for a phenotype with a degree of resistance to HIV. At first sight smallpox makes more sense - CCR5 is a viral coreceptor during HIV infection, and Yersinia pestis (the consensus agent of the Black Death) is a bacterium).
--
alias Ernest Major

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: stephen hawking on intelligent life in the universe
    ... many as one in ten survivors or as few as one in twenty or so. ... The epidemics spread far faster than the Europeans. ... The diseases that they resisted easily were horribly ... in the Americas, there were very few endemic diseases. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Opinion: How much do you know about evolution?
    ... When Europeans came to the Americas, why did 90% of the Native ... Americans die of European diseases, but few Europeans died of American ... Europeans depended more on livestock, and had developed resistance to the diseases acquired from pigs, cows, etc. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: How to end the Great Recession
    ... There is an enormous volume of information:>> about civilization in the Americas going back 10,000 years, much if it:>> just being unearthed over the last decade. ... This population declined rapidly after the Europeans came to:the Americas and it is believed that this is because of diseases that:the Europeans brought with them - small pox, cholera, typhus, etc.:While the Europeans had some native resistance to these diseases, the:native Americans did not and they spread rapidly, moving more rapidly:than the Europeans did. ... there were few domesticable animals in the ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Re: How to end the Great Recession
    ... There is an enormous volume of information about civilization in the Americas going back 10,000 years, much if it just being unearthed over the last decade. ... He is an expert on Chinese history and makes some interesting claims about how China was very advanced before the Romans built their empire. ... This population declined rapidly after the Europeans came to the Americas and it is believed that this is because of diseases that the Europeans brought with them - small pox, cholera, typhus, etc. ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Re: Opinion: How much do you know about evolution?
    ... Americans die of European diseases, but few Europeans died of American ... Europeans depended more on livestock, and had developed resistance to the diseases acquired from pigs, cows, etc. ...
    (talk.origins)