Dynamics of beneficial epidemics Santa Fe Institute Postdocs∗ Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, 87501 USA benepinamics@gmail.com Abstract Pathogens can spread epidemically through populations. Beneficial contagions, such as viruses that enhance host...
More
Dynamics of beneficial epidemics Santa Fe Institute Postdocs∗ Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, 87501 USA benepinamics@gmail.com Abstract Pathogens can spread epidemically through populations. Beneficial contagions, such as viruses that enhance host survival or technological innovations that improve quality of life, also have the potential to spread epidemically. How do the dynamics of beneficial biological and social epi- demics differ from those of detrimental epidemics? We investigate this question using three theoretical approaches as well as an empirical analy- sis of concept propagation. First, in evolutionary models, we show that a beneficial horizontally-transmissible element, such as viral DNA, spreads super-exponentially through a population, substantially more quickly than a beneficial mutation. Second, in an epidemiological social network ap- proach, we show that infections that cause increased connectivity lead to faster-than-exponential fixation in the population. Third,
Less
