Passage Discussion

[LSAT-Chang]

Would you guys agree with my scale???

Side 1 -- host and parasite develop benign coexistence
Side 2 -- parasites overwhelm hosts

The author would go with side 2, and there is a lot more information devoted to side 2, than side 1. Any feedback would be great as I am currently struggling with reading for scale..

[timmydoeslsat]

Would you guys agree with my scale???

Side 1 -- host and parasite develop benign coexistence
Side 2 -- parasites overwhelm hosts

The author would go with side 2, and there is a lot more information devoted to side 2, than side 1. Any feedback would be great as I am currently struggling with reading for scale..

I create a visual scale without even consciously being aware of it. I am thinking...oh we have a side here that says that A, and then there is a side over here. The author falls over here...

This passage is definitely has a central argument in the context of a phenomenon.

The phenomenon is that there is no scientific explanation for the fact that there are parasites have evolved to incapacitate their hosts.

We have the views:

View that could not explain the evolution of pathogens: Prevailing view of parasite-host
- Would not be in parasite's interest to incapacitate host. Parasites live off host.

vs.

View that incapacitating hosts can lead to evolutionary success
- Author is open to this suggestion explaining the occurrence.
- Some biologists suggested this.
- # of new hosts transmitted with pathogen > # pathogens lost due to incapacitation can equal evolutionary success


There is a limit placed on this theory. That is, those like the rhinovirus, in which incapacitation would not lead to such success because it needs close proximity to transmit itself.

The overall understanding of this passage should be that a theory concerning parasites and hosts was not adequate to explain the behavior of pathogenic evolution. Some biologists have suggested an idea that could explain this and why it would be an evolutionary success. It gives examples of where incapacitating a host by certain viruses would not lead to success, like the rhinovirus. It gives an example where a vector can be used to the benefit of a pathogen that incapacitates the host. The passage ends by saying that there are some viruses that can live outside of the incapacitated host for a long time even though they are like rhinovirus in which they rely on that proximity to transmit.