How Does The Theory Of Evolution Explain The Existence Of The Immune System?

Question

No imaginary scenarios.

Answer 1

,Don't think it does. Our immune System changes with every thing we come in contact with, don't think it would explain evolution of any thing but the Immune System.

Answer 2

Theory of evolution does not explain the Existence of the Immune System. The nature does. Look into every living creature and the balance that we should maintain in the world for existence. How each country adopt to its available resources for its existence.

Answer 3

If you look at the immune system as a system of cells that consume other cells and foreign matter, that is the basis of how life perpetuates itself. A cell obtains material from its environment to grow and reproduce. It's not much of a stretch to picture that system living in a symbiotic relationship with another system of cells that form another living organism. One gets to obtain nutrients from the other in exchange for protecting its partner.

Another explanation could be that an organism developed a trait whereby it had specialized cells that would scour the creature and devour anything that wasn't the same as the rest of it. If this trait allowed this particular creature to survive longer than others then it was passed on to another generation through natural selection.

Answer 4

You're kidding, right?

The immune system provides a strong defense mechanism for complex multi-cellular life when the host is being invaded by single celled attackers. Its a system strongly, strongly favoured by natural selection, since individuals without it are highly likely to die before they reproduce. The immune system is a classic and textbook example of the benefits of evolution, as well as the competitive race between hosts and parasites...

if you want to read about the mechanics of the early immune system (in sponges, the earliest multicellular zoological beings) this paper deals with it:

http://apt.allenpress.com/aptonline/?request=get-abstract&issn=1540-7063&volume=043&issue=02&page=0281

Answer 5

How does the theory of God explain the existence of the immune system. According to the Bible Adam would have been created without one since he would have had no need for it.

Answer 6

Survival of the fittest.

Those that have a strong well developed immune system are more likely to survive and hence reproduce leaving their offspring to pass on their genes.

Those that lack an immune system die young.

Answer 7

Which do you think stands a better chance of surviving, a human without an immune system (think of AIDS patients, it's close enough) or one with a healthy one? The healthy one would live, and reproduce with another healthy one, and make healthy off springs, who then follow in their footsteps...

Answer 8

"The innate immune system is the more ancient of the two systems, with roots deep in the deuterostome branch of the bilaterians, roughly one billion years ago. Conversely, the adaptive immune system appeared more recently and quite suddenly, around 450 million years ago with the emergence of the gnathostomes, more commonly called the jawed vertebrates. Because of its high degree of complexity and interconnectivity, the mammalian immune system has been labeled as "irreducibly complex", and its evolution and origin through "Darwinian" mechanisms challenged.

Michael Behe has challenged that because of the nature of IC, biochemical systems that possess this quality could not have evolved through random mutation and natural selection, or "blind-watchmaking". Essentially, Behe is using IC to disprove evolution. As an alternative, Behe suggests that the only way that IC biochemical systems could have originated is through intelligent intervention. He offers as evidence the fact that all IC systems whose origins are known were designed by intelligent agents, us.

There are many problems with Behe's argument. Basically, Behe is saying that because we do not know how an IC system could have evolved, it didn't evolve. This type of argumentation is referred to as an argument from ignorance. The problem with arguments from ignorance is that they make a conclusion based on a lack of knowledge.

Behe outlines three IC biochemical systems in the immune system; clonal selection, V(D)J recombination, and the complement cascade. However, in his analysis of each of these systems, Behe makes critical mistakes. For the process of clonal selection, Behe targets the antibody molecules, which have the ability to rearrange their genes, and to switch from a membrane-bound form to a secreted form. Behe assumes that an antibody molecule missing one of these features would be useless. However, there are many examples of proteins that do not undergo rearrangement, but are able to switch forms. Additionally, there is a gene closely related to antibodies which can also undergo rearrangement, but does not switch forms. Behe neglects to mention either of these intermediate-like molecules. Instead, he scrutinizes the process of antibody gene rearrangement as the second IC system. He describes the numerous features of this system and claims there is no pathway through which it could have evolved. However, he assumes that the only selectable function for the genes involved in rearrangement is rearrangement. There are well-studied systems that bear remarkable similarity to V(D)J recombination that have nothing to do with immunity. He fails to recognize the existence of these other systems, nor realizes that most of the components of recombination are already present there. Finally, in his description of the third IC system, Behe mistakenly assigns a single function to the complement pathway. He fails to realize that the complement system has several different functions, and several mechanisms of activation. This would allow for a gradual, stepwise accumulation of parts and functions. In fact, many other groups of organisms possess a complement system that lacks his primary function. According to Behe's definition of irreducible complexity, those systems shouldn't exist."

Full article at source below.

Answer 9

What's to explain? Unless you're like 8 years old, it's common sense. Hell, antibody production is practially a microcosm of Darwinian Evolution

Answer 10

evolution has nothing to do with the immune system.