Are People Parasites?

E

Epictetus

here & now
Registered Senior Member
I was looking at the new thread asking if viruses are non living. Not wanting to get off the topic, I thought I'd ask my question here.

Are People Parasites? Because the estimable Grumpy writes:
Viruses are not considered alive because they carry out none of the functions we associate with life. They do not use energy, digest food or reproduce themselves
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So that got me thinking. How is any living organism that doesn't make its own food like a green plant not parasitic?
 
Perhaps a definition of the term parasitic would be in order?

Source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/parasite

par·a·site
n.
1. Biology An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host.
2.
a. One who habitually takes advantage of the generosity of others without making any useful return.
b. One who lives off and flatters the rich; a sycophant.
3. A professional dinner guest, especially in ancient Greece.
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There are some who consider the planet to be an integrated, living organism, even though it does not fit the parameters that most would ascribe to a sentient individual being.

If we contemplate the planet to be a living network, then some might well regard homo sapiens (all life, for that matter) to be parasitic in the sense that we absolutely require the planet to survive, yet many species have gone extinct and the planet continues to evolve new life forms.
 
"If we contemplate the planet to be a living network, then some might well regard homo sapiens (all life, for that matter) to be parasitic in the sense that we absolutely require the planet to survive, yet many species have gone extinct and the planet continues to evolve new life forms."
We may be life forms or forms of life or dinner guests. But I don't believe we are parasites. More like a Virus maybe. See the Matrix..
 
Predators on other animals - but without the built-in limits to reproduction and territory that other predators have.
Parasitic on domestic livestock, because we [could but usually] do not treat them as symbiotes. Parasitic, too, on the ecology, since we always take out more than we put back: wasteful parasites that will certainly kill the host planet.
 
Epictetus said:
I was looking at the new thread asking if viruses are non living. Not wanting to get off the topic, I thought I'd ask my question here.

Are People Parasites? Because the estimable Grumpy writes:

So that got me thinking. How is any living organism that doesn't make its own food like a green plant not parasitic?
Click to expand...

IMO humans could be considered planetary parasites in that Earth has a living biosphere that humans are not in a relationship that contributes as much as we take from it. The word that comes to mind is sustainability. In the end parasites always shorten the life of the host, which in this case is the planets biosphere.
 
Somewhere along the evolutionary line of most species a parasitic 'relationship' has been prevelant. Some of these organisms, once intertwined along the evolutionary path, become as if a single, symbiotic organism. The bacteria living in our gut for instance rely on our survival as much as we do on theirs. Even the mitochondria inherent in human blood is thought to have arisen from the sybiosis with another, separately evolved, species.

Is it such a leap to suggest that if parasites can alter our behaviour, our genetic structure, and sybiosis can truely be the making of a species, that at some point in human history a similar event occured which was fundamental to our mental survival?

Imagine if you will a simple virus which a majority of humans carried in their brainstems, much as the Toxoplasma example given in the article above. Let's say that around 20-30 thousand years ago this virus/parasite mutated and somehow incorporated intself into the genetic code of its hosts. Let's also assume that this mutation, however minute, fundamentally altered some working faculty of the brain, driving its host down brand new, unexplored, avenues of thought and thus evolution.

As a mediocre scientist, as an anarchistic philosopher and sci-fi fuelled cyberjunky I offer that this 'theory' is not as outlandish as it first seems. Were I to allow myself the pleasure of greater 'science fictionalising' of this concept I might for instance postulate true, extra-terrestrial origins for such a viral attack. Or perhaps, in a dash of lunacy, I may extend the evolutionary boundaries of this theory right up to the present day.

Is it not the aim of all parasites to alter the structure of its host in such a way that the next generation of parasite may benifit from its parents blind intervention? Perhaps the invention of technology was such a pursuit; perhaps external forces in attempting to communicate with our primitive ancestors had to push us to a stage in our evolution where we were capable of understanding their message. Perhaps I go too far with my parasitic voyage into the sci-fi realm, but then again, perhaps some chunk of data coded into my genetic structure allowed me the pleasure to imagine such an unlikely scenario in the first place...

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...p-iGCA&usg=AFQjCNE8UQ66MZxxm9zHuqJGiLsK_JX3vw
 
Buddha12 said:
Somewhere along the evolutionary line of most species a parasitic 'relationship' has been prevelant. Some of these organisms, once intertwined along the evolutionary path, become as if a single, symbiotic organism. The bacteria living in our gut for instance rely on our survival as much as we do on theirs. Even the mitochondria inherent in human blood is thought to have arisen from the sybiosis with another, separately evolved, species.

Is it such a leap to suggest that if parasites can alter our behaviour, our genetic structure, and sybiosis can truely be the making of a species, that at some point in human history a similar event occured which was fundamental to our mental survival?

Imagine if you will a simple virus which a majority of humans carried in their brainstems, much as the Toxoplasma example given in the article above. Let's say that around 20-30 thousand years ago this virus/parasite mutated and somehow incorporated intself into the genetic code of its hosts. Let's also assume that this mutation, however minute, fundamentally altered some working faculty of the brain, driving its host down brand new, unexplored, avenues of thought and thus evolution.

As a mediocre scientist, as an anarchistic philosopher and sci-fi fuelled cyberjunky I offer that this 'theory' is not as outlandish as it first seems. Were I to allow myself the pleasure of greater 'science fictionalising' of this concept I might for instance postulate true, extra-terrestrial origins for such a viral attack. Or perhaps, in a dash of lunacy, I may extend the evolutionary boundaries of this theory right up to the present day.

Is it not the aim of all parasites to alter the structure of its host in such a way that the next generation of parasite may benifit from its parents blind intervention? Perhaps the invention of technology was such a pursuit; perhaps external forces in attempting to communicate with our primitive ancestors had to push us to a stage in our evolution where we were capable of understanding their message. Perhaps I go too far with my parasitic voyage into the sci-fi realm, but then again, perhaps some chunk of data coded into my genetic structure allowed me the pleasure to imagine such an unlikely scenario in the first place...

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...p-iGCA&usg=AFQjCNE8UQ66MZxxm9zHuqJGiLsK_JX3vw
Click to expand...

I won't say it's impossible for parasites to become symbiotic, but their chances improve the longer the infected host stays alive. If we develop the knowledge and skill to design custom viruses that perform vital services inside the human body, such as disease prevention and cell repair and maintenance, human life could still get much better.
 
Epictetus said:
Grumpy said:
Viruses are not considered alive because they carry out none of the functions we associate with life. They do not use energy, digest food or reproduce themselves
Click to expand...
So that got me thinking. How is any living organism that doesn't make its own food like a green plant not parasitic?
Click to expand...
You've been misled because Grumpy's quote is incorrect. The digestion of food is merely one type of metabolism. All animals digest food, but animals are only one of the six kingdoms of lifeforms. (On this planet. We have no idea what's waiting for us on other planets. I'm sure we won't even realize that some of those things are alive right away.)

The metabolism of plants is based on photosynthesis, not digestion. They extract carbon dioxide and water from the environment, and change it into new plant cells, and into oxygen which they release back into the environment.

I don't really know very much about the other four kingdoms: fungi, algae, bacteria and archaea. I know that at least some fungi "digest food" the way animals do. Mushrooms, for example, grow roots into dead trees and use the enzyme lignase to digest the lignin in the wood. (This is why there will never be any more petroleum, coal or natural gas: dead trees are not left lying around for millions of years anymore.) But some taxa are not so consistent and do not have one single type of metabolism for all of their members. For example, some archaea (tiny one-celled organisms that are not at all related to bacteria) are able to extract chemical energy from the bonds in methane, ammonia and sulfur compounds, but others get energy from sunlight (but not by photosynthesis) while others get it by scavenging detritus (dead organisms).

There are a few commonalities in the tiny details of the metabolisms of all terrestrial life, such as glycolysis and a citric acid cycle. (I'm just reading this from Wikipedia in real time.) But these processes are clearly efficient on earth because they interact very well with the earth's environment. We have no idea what the metabolism of a creature who lives on another planet, in another galaxy, or out in open space might be like.

And BTW: some animals, some plants and some fungi are parasitic.

Check back in on my post in the thread on viruses.
 
If one wishes to emphasize humans' destructive behavior in regard to the environment, there are probably other ecological terms that are more in line with proper/technical usage. For technical language we don't fit any definition of "parasite" that wouldn't make almost 99.9% of all organisms parasites.

And "living planet Earth"/"Gaia theory" is BS, so it's a BS-sy basis for the terminology.
 
Buckaroo Banzai said:
If one wishes to emphasize humans' destructive behavior in regard to the environment, there are probably other ecological terms that are more in line with proper/technical usage. For technical language we don't fit any definition of "parasite" that wouldn't make almost 99.9% of all organisms parasites.

And "living planet Earth"/"Gaia theory" is BS, so it's a BS-sy basis for the terminology.
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It does really come down to the definition that we apply to words, I would agree.

The majority of balanced relationships between various biological organisms would appear to be predominantly symbiotic, yet when out of balance (which often occurs naturally as well in response to the myriad of interactions) the advantage frequently falls to one organism over another, in which case the relationship may appear parasitic to the casual observer.

As example, we do ourselves disservice when we seek to eradicate all surface germs and viruses because we are fearful of some that are harmful to us.

The connotations of language, lol.

'Parasitic' sounds so nasty, while symbiotic comes across as more harmonious in some way, yet life and death are both symbiotic and parasitic to my way of thinking. :)
 
Buckaroo Banzai said:
If one wishes to emphasize humans' destructive behavior in regard to the environment, there are probably other ecological terms that are more in line with proper/technical usage. For technical language we don't fit any definition of "parasite" that wouldn't make almost 99.9% of all organisms parasites.

And "living planet Earth"/"Gaia theory" is BS, so it's a BS-sy basis for the terminology.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what the best term for the biosphere is, but I do know it's more fragile than most people think. All life forms are in equilibrium with an ever changing biosphere, which means all the individual equilibrium's are in a state of constant change. When the change passes a certain point that a specific life form can't live with, they go extinct.
 
Parasites are those organisms that are benefited by other organisms. On the other hand, the other organisms that help the parasites are hurt. Sometimes, people seem to be like parasite, not helping you, benefited by you, yet still hurt you.
 
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finch74 said:
Parasites are those organisms that are benefited by other organisms. On the other hand, the other organisms that help the parasites are hurt. Sometimes, people seem to be like parasite, not helping you, benefited by you, yet still hurt you.
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If we don't want this thread to turn into a troll fest, we should probably stick reasonably close to the scientific definitions of our words. The term parasite, by definition, applies to an entire species, whose members derive benefits (usually but not always nutrition) from members of one or more other species. This action is always to the detriment of the host species.

An individual of one species who steals nutrition or other benefits from a member of the same species is not a parasite.

Of course we use the term colloquially to describe welfare-cheaters, panhandlers, people who "suck the joy" out of us, etc. But that's not good science.

People who hurt other people in order to steal benefits such as food, shelter, sex, emotional reassurance, etc., are not practicing parasitism. They are merely competing with them in ways that civilization defines as dishonorable. Unless they're really rich and have political power. ;)
 
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