BIO220H1 Chapter Notes -Smoke Detector, Sickle-Cell Disease, Evolutionary Medicine
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BIO220H1 Full Course Notes
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Document Summary
Discomforting conditions (i. e. pain, fever, cough, etc. ) are not diseases; but rather are evolved defenses. The body undergoes trade-offs between a trait"s benefits and costs. Things like coughing are important (i. e. must be able to cough out foreign particles which could cause harm to the body) Things like pain are also necessary (i. e. if you cannot feel pain, you might continue to do something that is damaging to your body, which eventually leads to tissue damage or infections) Having a severe response with no real threat is better than not having a severe response with a real threat (minor inconvenience is a lesser cost than the cost of death) Every disease or illness is beneficial to us in some way (mainly for the fact that it leads to reduced death in the long-run in comparison to other individuals that do not have them)
