Just my two cents, but if you see John getting bitten and then getting sick, and you see Mary getting bitten and then getting sick, you’re probably going to think “Gee, seems like people get sick of those bites. Better cover my skin, huh?”
I’m pretty sure people have connected the two. While it may not seem like it on a day to day basis, people are pretty smart when there’s enough of them and you give it some time.
kireotick@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Well the point is that people who had a bad reaction to mosquito bites tend to avoid getting them. Therefore they tend to live longer because they also happen to avoid the diseases, live longer and have more babies. They don’t need to understand anything.
The point is that the itching evolved because it could be beneficial for us. The bites are not unpleasant in themselves as you say. They are unpleasant because we evolved to feel them unpleasant. It is the same as sex being pleasant. It is that way because it is beneficial.
kamenoko@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Biting insects kill more people than any other animal group by miles, the reaction response is more or less the same in every mammal. Evolution doesn’t evolve to anything, that’s selective pressure.
This behavior predates humans as we know ourselves today.
JustZ@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I take issue with this obvious selection bias. Of course this is true when you’re pre-selecting for only the insects that bite people. If you were to preselect, only those sharks that have bitten people, so-called biting sharks, I think the shark been people have a higher average mortality than the insect bitten people. /s
fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc 3 weeks ago
I’m not disagreeing with you, but I think it’s a histamine response which is just directed at parasites in general.