Oh, I thought evolution was just ~random mutation~ and only the beneficial ones stuck because of ~survival of the fittest~? Isn't that why people who don't treat science like a religion have had to argue for decades about the multi-stage evolutionary processes involved in eye development, and so on?

But now it's okay to admit that evolution is guided in some way? That even an organism as simple as a virus is capable, by some unseen process, of directing its own evolution in a way that is beneficial in response to selective pressure?

I'm confused here. I can see three possibilities, and I would appreciate it if someone less ignorant than me on this topic could offer some input:

1: That Real™ scientists have been wise to this for some time, and it's only le reddit atheist tier science man people who still cling to the "evolution is entirely random and beneficial mutations stick only because they statistically increase survivability" model,

2: That this is some new understanding that has simply not filtered down to I Fucking Love Science tier people yet,

3: That this is a convenient excuse employed in this one instance to justify why a [fictitious or manmade, pick your conspiracy theory] variant of the virus has so many base protein mutations in one jump, as a lazy cover story

@brother I might be missing something, but this seems just like a moronic wording from the author.

Yes, there was a mutation, but there was not explained, how rare mutations really are and how many of them happen at once. Every person might get infected by one virus, but when you have millions of them inside your body, while you can still average, many individual viruses in your body should be very different from others.

Not to mention, that a random virus from your body will become the new generation origin in a new host.

I wrote this to explain, that I do not believe, that there even is somerhing like 'a new strain' that did an evolutionary jump, but a conserning shift in the mean. Sadly, people love to miss-qote badly done research so they can claim BS later... but you already do know 'I fucking love science' group, so there is no point in metioning that mess.

@LukeAlmighty Gonna be honest, "there is no new UK strain and it's all a convenient, evidence-bereft excuse to explain the spike that came when our moronic government reopened schools" is probably the first covid conspiracy theory that's actually caused me to contemplate it

But for all i know in the two days since i last gave a fuck about whatever is going on they published all the evidence and it's Validated ✅

@brother you hot me wrong. I said there is a shift in the average virus. In other words, I do believe in a new strain. (Obviously)

What I was saying is that in the same way you can see many different europeans and asians, there was a gradual change from their ancestor, and every individual has a different genome. Nothing more.