- Life on earth has always been about species struggling to secure their odds of survival. A little known story, though, is the complex role that viruses have played in our evolution.
- Today, these microscopic bugs are among our biggest threats, especially the zoonotic kind like the novel coronavirus. We must constantly adapt to stay a step ahead of them.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]
Twenty years ago, Matt Ridley’s The Red Queen, a brilliant and seamy proposition of how human behaviour has evolved in order to help protect the survival of our species. Ridley theorizes, with support from every corner of the animal kingdom—from water fleas to aphids, from guppies to peacocks and from cockerels to chimpanzees—that human beings are locked in a race for survival like Lewis Carroll’s character, the Red Queen.
To enhance their chance of survival, for instance, some bamboos flower only once every 121 years simultaneously worldwide and then die, killing their parasites with them. Female red finches choose the reddest male on offer as he is genetically more disease-resistant. The earliest civilizations were all ruled by emperors with large harems of women whose fertility was carefully observed, controlled and managed for the reproductive prolificity of their ruler.
Indeed, as we progressed from the paleolithic age, foraging for lean meats and berries, we randomly or intentionally (the verdict is still out) cultivated crops. The seed of civilization was planted. This is not a new theory and has been espoused by many, but Jared Diamond popularized this narrative for the lay person most strikingly if sensationally in his runaway 1997 success of a book, Guns, Germs and Steel.
As human beings settled down to an agricultural life with food aplenty, they domesticated animals. Living in groups of large human settlements resulted in the transmission of viruses such as smallpox, measles and influenza from domesticated animals to us. The Old World, having periodically been ravaged by these diseases from time immemorial (smallpox has been found in Egyptian mummies), was largely conferred immunity, unlike New World populations that were decimated by these infections after Europeans landed on their shores.
So then, what does evolutionary biology tell us about viruses? As Carl Zimmer puts it, we are literally living on A Planet of Viruses. For one, human beings are greatly outnumbered by them. The ocean alone holds viruses that would extend for 42 million light years if they were all in a line.
Viruses are also much older than us. In a cave in Mexico, 26 million year-old crystals were found to be teeming with viruses. Above all, we have been shaped by them. About 8% of our DNA consists of endogenous retroviruses.
A retrovirus called ERV-L that lurks in our genome dates back to 100 million years ago, and is now found in armadillos, elephants, manatees and humans. Another such virus called HERV-W actually makes syncytin, a protein critical to providing nutrition in the placenta. When it first infected the common ancestor of mammals, it was possibly responsible for evolving the very first placenta.
While this paints a somewhat rosy picture of our symbiotic relationship with viruses, the truth is less rosy. Viruses are our greatest existential threat, with smallpox killing close to 300 million people, measles 200 million and polio around 25 million people in the 20th century alone. Influenza, HIV, Ebola, SARS, MERS, H1N1 and of course SARS-COV2 are just a few of the viruses that have plagued us.
Staggering advances in science have led to vaccines and treatments for many of these. The past year has been a testament to the astonishing success of human beings to rapidly decode the genome and produce multiple vaccines for SARS-COV2.
But as our population continues to grow, and as we brush up against and further encroach upon the habitats of every other species, novel viral epidemics are going to become more common. Unlike smallpox and polio, these so-called zoonotic diseases are virtually impossibly to eradicate as they can be borne by other species.
As David Quammen, author of Spillover, writes of zoonotic diseases: “Ecological circumstance provides opportunity for spillover. Evolution seizes opportunity, explores possibilities, and helps convert spillovers to pandemics.”
As we ponder our fate in 2021, we would do well to think of our evolutionary history and the principles of the Red Queen. We may have evolved into apes with large brains, but we somehow seem blissfully unaware of our fate. Those who don’t adapt will not survive. And those who do adapt may find it takes “all the running you can do to keep in the same place”.
Receive Daily Updates
Recent Posts
Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.