"Not a Virus, but an Upgrade": The Ethics of Epidemic Evolution in Greg Bear 's Darwin's Radio

Three-quarters of the way into Greg Bear's 1999 novel Darwin's Radio, the novel's protagonist, Kaye Lang, sees Dustin Hoffman on television as she flips channels in a motel room. The grim, exhausted Lang is momentarily transfixed by Hoffman, who reprises his role as an army researcher in the 1993 film Outbreak. Striding through an empty film studio (as if he were trying to return to the site of the film itself), the actor urges the public to remain calm in the face of a viral epidemic: