Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues

by Jonathan Kennedy

It’s a bacterial world, and we’re just squatting here.

therefore not the strongest or most intelligent members of our species who were most likely to survive long enough to pass on their DNA to the next generation; rather, it was humans who had the most effective immune system to cope with the onslaught of infectious diseases, or those who had mutations that made their cells unusable to microbes. Lots of these mutations not only conferred resistance to pathogens but also had a negative impact on cell function. This suggests that humans’ struggle for existence was a fight against microbes rather than alpha males and apex predators.

Prehistory was punctuated by massive waves of migration that resulted in a new population moving into a region and almost completely wiping out the previous inhabitants.