Previous
Chapter 8
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Survival of the Sickest, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Evolution and Illness
Interspecies Connectivity and Adaptation
Environment, Ancestry, and Race
Genetic Expression, Acquired Traits, and Mutation
Interdisciplinary Science and Research
Summary
Analysis
Moalem concludes that he hopes readers come away with an appreciation of three things: that life is constantly being created and recreated, that everything is interrelated, and that humans have a surprisingly complex relationship with disease. He notes that we should appreciate our health and life itself. Moalem emphasizes that we should have reverence for how beautiful and intricate life on Earth is. He finishes by saying that the more we learn about this complex development of life, the more it looks like a miracle: “the miracle of evolution.”
Moalem ends his book by summarizing some of its key ideas: first, that we are constantly evolving and adapting, spurred by the imperatives of surviving and reproducing. Second, that our genes are shaped by the world around us, including the environment and other organisms. And third, that disease can play a surprising role in our evolution—and only by understanding its tradeoffs can we learn more about how to shape our health in the future.
Themes
