Next up: how the cows may be controlling the dairy farmerhttps://twitter.com/Psychobiotic/status/1061305014784794626 …
Imagine that a goat farmer gets a cow transplant. The farmer measures the amount of milk being produced by each, and as a result begins to breed mostly cows. He will also have to learn to switch from goat feed to cow feed. Does that mean that the cows control the farmer?
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Of course one's initial impulse is to say no, but I think this may be a matter of semantics. Speaking literally, receiving the cows caused the farmer to modify his behavior. And speaking less in metaphor, the ability of microbes to influence host behavior is well established.
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I think that toxoplasmosis makes people more impulsive and flu makes people more interested in social interaction. Both changes are maladaptive. Due to the way evolution works, our organism will trend towards the right level of impulsivity and sociality by itself.
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