I'm not sure whether you read a lot, listen to a lot of podcasts, or maybe in real life you're Bruce Weinstein and you've come here to toy with us, but you know more about evolutionary biology than the rest of us combined.
I may be dense here, but it looks to me like what Noir Man wrote is consistent what you've written in this thread.
Originally Posted by Tiny
It appears to me, Noir was attempting to dispute my claim that viruses tend to get less virulent over time. He did so by pointing to two particularly deadly strains of virus that are exceptions to that claim while not realizing that there are over forty strains of that virus that are not deadly making those two statistical outliers. There are always exceptions.
His next comment seems to sarcastically imply that a virus would act in it's own best interest. It won't. It can't. It doesn't know what it's interests are. It acts in the manner it was genetically programmed to. It will only change how it acts when it accidentally mutates again. Those mutations are random and produce organisms both better and more poorly suited to their environment. So yes, they will act in ways that are against their best interest. And they die out like the vast majority have throughout time.
Thirdly, viruses do evolve over time without a design, but the most successful ones trend towards being less virulent because it is a more efficient way to replicate in new hosts, as a sicker host is less mobile and and less able to spread the infection. Once the host dies the virus dies with it. (becomes inactive) Especially a virus that requires blood to blood contact for transmission. Nature rewards flexibility. That's why viruses have been around so long. They tend to spontaneously mutate a lot. Some survive, most do not.
If Noir is not trying to use the aids viruses to disprove my premise about viruses then I have misread his intent. He is free to clarify the point of his post. We'll see.