pls write a long note as long as 3 pages on the topic 'biological wepons against mankind'
pls give such a long note that I is as long as 3 pages atleast
Answers
Answer:
Future of Biological Warfare
Explanation:
It is an axiom of human history that whatever technology is available will be applied in warfare as one side or the other seeks to gain an advantage. Humans are unique among the species in their capacity for fighting prolonged conflicts where the nature of the war reflects the types of technologies available. Stone, metal, leather, wood, domesticated animals, wheels, etc. were each exploited by ancient societies in warfare. In late antiquity the adoption of the stirrup in Western Europe transformed warfare by enhancing the fighting capacity of the mounted warrior, which eventually led to the emergence and prominence of the knightly class. More recently gunpowder, steam engines, aircraft, chemicals, electronics and nuclear physics were employed in warfare. In each epoch, the technologies available had enormous influence on the strategy and tactics used. Biological warfare is ancient but its applicability to the battlefield has been limited by its unpredictability, blowback possibility and uncertain efficacy. However, the biological revolution that began in the mid‐20th century has led to the development of powerful technologies that could potentially be used to generate new biological weapons of tremendous destructive power. Although biological warfare is currently prohibited by the 1972 Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention (BTWC) a review of prior attempts to limit the use of certain weapons such as the medieval crossbow, and more recently gas warfare, provides little encouragement for the notion that a technology that is useful in war can be limited by treaty. Furthermore, the BTWC restrictions apply only to signatory nation states and are irrelevant to terrorist organizations or lone wolves type of terrorists. Given the human track record for conflict and the potential power of biological warfare we are led to the sad conclusion that biological warfare has a future, and that society must prepare for the eventuality that it will used again by either nations or individuals. In this essay I will try to peek into the far horizon to identify some general themes that might be helpful in protecting against future horrors fully aware that the nature of technological change is so rapid and profound that any such view must necessarily be myopic.
Existential threats to humanity
In considering the importance of biological warfare as a subject for concern it is worthwhile to review the known existential threats. At this time this writer can identify at three major existential threats to humanity: (i) large‐scale thermonuclear war followed by a nuclear winter, (ii) a planet killing asteroid impact and (iii) infectious disease. To this trio might be added climate change making the planet uninhabitable. Of the three existential threats the first is deduced from the inferred cataclysmic effects of nuclear war. For the second there is geological evidence for the association of asteroid impacts with massive extinction (Alvarez, 1987). As to an existential threat from microbes recent decades have provided unequivocal evidence for the ability of certain pathogens to cause the extinction of entire species. Although infectious disease has traditionally not been associated with extinction this view has changed by the finding that a single chytrid fungus was responsible for the extinction of numerous amphibian species (Daszak et al., 1999; Mendelson et al., 2006). Previously, the view that infectious diseases were not a cause of extinction was predicated on the notion that many pathogens required their hosts and that some proportion of the host population was naturally resistant. However, that calculation does not apply to microbes that are acquired directly from the environment and have no need for a host, such as the majority of fungal pathogens. For those types of host–microbe interactions it is possible for the pathogen to kill off every last member of a species without harm to itself, since it would return to its natural habitat upon killing its last host. Hence, from the viewpoint of existential threats environmental microbes could potentially pose a much greater threat to humanity than the known pathogenic microbes, which number somewhere near 1500 species (Cleaveland et al., 2001; Taylor et al., 2001), especially if some of these species acquired the capacity for pathogenicity as a consequence of natural evolution or bioengineering.
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