Tuesday, April 07, 2009
How to Prevent Evolution in Mosquitos
A paper in PLoS Biology discusses How to Make Evolution-Proof Insecticides for Malaria Control. The idea is to develop drugs that only kill mosquitoes after they've reproduced. That way the population can't evolve resistance to the drug.
What's interesting about this paper is the response of two different bloggers. On adaptationist, Jerry Coyne's blog, guest writer Matthew Cobb thinks it's a great idea [Of mosquitoes and the menopause]. In fact he links his discussion of the paper to the well-known adaptationist explanation of menopause.
The pluralist, Ryan Gregory, is much more skeptical, pointing out that evolution is smarter than you are ["Evolution-proof"?].
Grab your popcorn and enjoy the fight. My money's on Gregory.