LETTER
Fever: Blessing or Curse?
Daniel B. Hrdy, MD, PhD
15 December 1994 | Volume 121 Issue 12 | Pages 983-984
TO THE EDITOR:
Dr. Mackowiak [1] presents the interesting hypothesis that if "one accepts preservation of the species, rather than survival of the individual, as the essence of evolution, fever and its mediators might have evolved ... for hastening the elimination of fulminantly infected individuals who pose a threat of epidemic disease to the species."
This hypothesis uses the "species benefit fallacy" [2]. As evolutionary biologists have shown [3], natural selection can only act on the individual (or on groups of closely related kin), not on the species. Any individual who died to preserve the species would fail to leave his or her traits to subsequent generations. Individuals without the trait that led to early death would leave more offspring, and the trait would tend to disappear from the population. The "essence of evolution" rests in the fact that individuals leave different numbers of surviving offspring according to their individual evolutionary fitness. The current consensus is that a trait will not evolve to preserve the species [4].
1. Mackowiak PA. Fever: blessing or curse? A unifying hypothesis. Ann Intern Med. 1994; 120:1037-40.
2. Trivers R. The group selection fallacy. In: Social Evolution. Menlo Park, New Jersey: Benjamin/Cummings; 1985:76.
3. Williams GC. Adaptation and Natural Selection. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press; 1966.
4. Krebs JR, Davies NB. An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific; 1993:14.
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