101–110 of 122 posts
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Fair - and you are probably right. But I'd rather not get into semantics. You know what I meant.
If everyone knew what you meant we wouldn't be having the discussion that we are definitely having.
It's horrible that people are dying because of malaria. I'm a bit divided on this approach though, I don't know enough about the topic at hand to suggest a different approach, but let me try. Would it be feasible to suggest using CRISP to create another adaptation to the gene, one that preserves the mosquitoes but makes them unable to transfer the disease to humans? Eliminating a species because we don't like it remi…
It is indeed horrible, and it is fantastic that so many resources are dedicated to find a solution to this travesty! Eliminating entire species deliberately, on the other hand, isn't really better. Yes, there is the us vs. them dilemma, and of course we should favour our own species if there's no other option, but this should be used as a last resort only. I wonder if there's anyone looking into using similar methods…
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People are also dying of war and hunger and lack of clean water and medicine. I would even argue that those are the bigger problems and the deaths of malaria are more symptoms of the former problems. Usually, it ain't the rich people who die of malaria. So I would focus in those problems instead of trying to inject suicide genes into the wild. I like the saying: the opposite of well done, is well intented.
>People are also dying of war and hunger and lack of clean water and medicine. No one can fix this with a snap of their fingers. You have to reform (replace?) governments, change cultural standards around sanitation, build tons of infrastructure. No matter how much aid is sent, it will take a long time even in the best case. These problems won't be fixed for good in the near future. Perhaps malaria can be made a thin…
Perhaps along with the last remaining shreds of intact eco systems that remained. Oh and perhaps some suicide genes end up somewhere else.
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>People are also dying of war and hunger and lack of clean water and medicine. No one can fix this with a snap of their fingers. You have to reform (replace?) governments, change cultural standards around sanitation, build tons of infrastructure. No matter how much aid is sent, it will take a long time even in the best case. These problems won't be fixed for good in the near future. Perhaps malaria can be made a thin…
"Perhaps malaria can be made a thing of the past before then." Perhaps along with the last remaining shreds of intact eco systems that remained. Oh and perhaps some suicide genes end up somewhere else.
Millions of lives currently depend on reducing mosquito populations, so methods of control will be used no matter what. Targeting a specific species of mosquito rather than spraying DDT everywhere will reduce the collateral damage to the environment immensely.
ITT: people who live in countries that aren’t ravaged by malaria share their vague feelings of doubt about whether or not getting rid of mosquitos is a good idea
ITT: people who live in countries that aren’t ravaged by malaria share their vague feelings of doubt about whether or not getting rid of mosquitos is a good idea
I don't live in a country ravaged by malaria and I want to get rid of mosquitoes.
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"Perhaps malaria can be made a thing of the past before then." Perhaps along with the last remaining shreds of intact eco systems that remained. Oh and perhaps some suicide genes end up somewhere else.
DDT is still being used for mosquito control, because the risks and ecological damage are deemed to be less important than the half million people per year dying of malaria. Millions of lives currently depend on reducing mosquito populations, so methods of control will be used no matter what. Targeting a specific species of mosquito rather than spraying DDT everywhere will reduce the collateral damage to the environm…
Altering genomes of living organisms with the intention of wiping out a species ... has a potential unlimited side effect.
I especially like the second example: fighting the toad in australia. Originally the toad was brought in to mess with the local ecosystem ... then it messed too much and now the solution is altering the genome with a exponentional bigger impact.
Isn't that real live satire? I mean how could that possible go wrong, since we understand everything about ecosystems and the genome today and are masters about controlling complex systems ...
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What exactly do you mean by " Of the thousands of species only something like a dozen actually matter to humans. " How sure are you? Keep in mind that, in this case, extinction is a side effect of another antimalarial effort.
Well we know only certain species carry malaria. Is that what you’re questioning? Also Seems like you skipped over this part: > nothing stops us from maintaining a population in some labs somewhere. If it turns out they matter in any significant way, contrary to various impact analysis... we just release them back into the environment.
...Re-releasing them, after the environment has adjusted to their absence, does not return you to the original state.
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It's one of the tenets of physics, every action has an equal reaction. This isn't really in dispute
This is sloppy thinking. Physics has nothing to do with punishment for human deeds.