Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer, Free Press, $26, ISBN 0684856387
PARASITES have driven the evolution of complex life, perhaps leading to the
evolution of sex—and thus to the all-singing, all-dancing displays of
courtship. We and all Earth’s ecosystems are probably partly dependent on
parasites for our health.
Contrast this view with those of Victorian biologists. They thought of
evolution as a progressive process, ascending from lower forms to humans.
Parasites seemed to arrest this process, even leading to degeneration. In
Parasite Rex, Carl Zimmer quotes one Henry Drummond, according to whom
parasitism “is one of the great crimes in…
