[a_Guest03]

These diseases DO NOT have the ability to wipe out the entire human race. AIDS has such a sporadic incubation period that those who have long periods will outlive the rest. Smallpox didn't kill everyone. The bubonic plague didn't kill everyone. Even NUKES won't kill EVERYONE. It takes a hell of a lot to beat down the human race. We'll probably take a big hit and won't have Windows 98 anymore, but we'll still be moving along until the worldwide climate is no longer able to support us.

If these diseases that are around now had the ability to wipe us out, we'd see percentages like 68% of a generation killed by smallpox, and the death numbers would be higher than the birth rates... I haven't serious death rates happen for quite some time, at least not globally. And the strong death rates we've seen have rarely lasted an entire century, aside maybe from smallpox and the bubonic plague, to which people a) were not exposed to in large parts of the world due to the high death rate or b) were partially immune. Disease requires an incubation period to continue to spread unless it feeds on something other than people. Its continued growth requires that animals or people or plants still exist nearby. A disease doesn't usually kill off entire species without help.