The Dark Angels of Evolution

The pandemic read through the eyes of science, nature and travel writer David Quammen, in dialogue with Italian philosopher Telmo Pievani. The talk is part of the program of BookCity, the book and reading festival of Milan, and will be introduced by Stefano Boeri, president of Triennale Milano.

Through his books, David Quammen tells how viruses are closely connected to our fate. In the world bestseller Spillover he predicted the risk of a global pandemic due to the passage of infections between animals and humans; in the recent volume Breathless the writer explores the recent pandemic through the comments and testimonies of ninety-five personalities in research and science: from the initial underestimation of the problem to the spasmodic search for the origin of the disease, the hospital response to the creation of vaccines, and the current state of variants. An account of the scientific effort to decode the Covid-19, SARS-CoV-2 virus and to fight the pandemic.

In dialogue with Telmo Pievani, a philosopher of science, evolutionist, communicator and essayist, Quammen argues for the idea that viruses should not be interpreted as an exclusively negative phenomenon but that, like bacteria, they are an integral part of human life and can also bring benefits, considering them "dark angels of evolution" to be understood.