this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts
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So your arguing there’s no situation in which a relationship can be both parasitic and mutually beneficial at the same time?
Have you tried googling it?
Yes. That is precisely what I'm arguing. They are a contradiction of terms. Mutualism is when both organisms prosper from their relationship. Parasitism is when one organism prospers at the expense of the other. There is zero overlap between those two things. If both organisms are prospering at least a little, that is mutualism. If only one organism is prospering, that is parasitism.
Like, am I taking crazy pills here? Or are you just stupid?
Happy to be labelled stupid. But yeh. Dunno what pills you’re taking.
Your grasp of the basic definitions of parasitism and mutualism is great 👍, but it seems you’re refusing to acknowledge the complexities and nuances of biological relationships.
These are not static, black-and-white definitions. Nature isn’t a simple dichotomy of “mutualism here, parasitism there”. It’s a continuum of interactions that evolve and change with conditions.
Consider the cleaner fish as an example. It’s an illustration of facultative mutualism. The fish provides a service by removing parasites from a host fish—a clear case of mutualism. But what happens when the cleaner fish starts taking bites of the host’s flesh, causing harm? Suddenly, this mutualistic interaction turns parasitic.
If the fish continues cleaning parasites, then it is still mutualistic. If the "host" benefits from the relationship overall, then it is mutualistic. If it doesn't benefit, and is actively harmed by the relationship, then it is parasitic.
The conversation seems to be veering into a game of semantics rather than addressing the biological complexity at hand.
The point isn't about rigidly sticking to one label or another based on each individual interaction; it's about acknowledging that the relationship can fluctuate based on various conditions. Therefore, there's value in having a label that encapsulates this variability, like 'facultative mutualism'.
‘Facultative mutualism' doesn't deny the presence of mutualistic or parasitic interactions but acknowledges that the relationship isn't strictly one or the other. It can fluctuate between the two extremes based on different circumstances, and there's utility in having a term that covers this variability.
You know what? That is fair. You're right - I was engaging in a purely semantics argument, and I'm sorry about that. It was dumb, and also assholish of me to assume that you didn't know what the fuck you were talking about and were just pulling things out of thin air. I see the point that it is useful to define relationships on a spectrum with fully parasitic at one end, and fully mutually beneficial at the other.
I have no clue what I’m talking about.