Question

How does the smoke detector principle, also known as the principle of asymmetric harm, explain why humans and other organisms get fevers even when a fever will not effectively help clear an infection?

Answer 1

Step-by-step explanation:

The Smoke Detector principle states that "it is better to have a false positive instead of a false negative especially when it comes to infectious diseases".

The implication of this especially as it relates to fevers is that the body's defense mechanism, predominantly the white blood cells, will rise up to fight anything that looks like a foreign body within the system even if it is not necessarily harmful to the body.

In lay mans language, 'its better to be safe than sorry'. So when the body detects a a foreign body, it triggers an alarm (just like a smoke detector) for the white blood cells to go fight or combat the foreign body to ensure that the body remains healthy.