"I can think of a few microorganisms, possibly the tubercle bacillus, the syphilis spirochete, the malarial parasite, and a few others, that have a selective advantage in their ability to infect human beings, but there is nothing to be gained, in an evolutionary sense, by the capacity to cause illness or death. Pathogenicity may be something of a disadvantage for most microbes."
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Original Language: English
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Lewis Thomas, Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1978), pp. 73–74
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Parasitism
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Parasitism
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