Congolese doctor discovered Ebola, but didn't get credit until now • Hacker News Board

Re: Congolese doctor discovered Ebola, but didn't get credit until now

#11

Post by thombat » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 11:11 AM UTC

drk23 wrote: post #7

Yea, reading the story, its bullsh as expected. He did not discover Ebola. It was the idiot tasked to get blood samples in some far away jungle. If he "discoverd" ebola, why he, not patient 0? That really stretches the meaning of "discover". But well, what do i know, he IS black after all.

We must have read different stories. The one I read was about Jean-Jacques Muyembe, PhD in microbiology, who elected to return to his homeland to work as an epidemiologist, and when called to a disease outbreak recognised it as something novel and arranged for blood samples to be sent to a Belgian lab.

Re: Congolese doctor discovered Ebola, but didn't get credit until now

#12

Post by chirau » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 11:16 AM UTC

What's new here? As an African myself I am not surprised at all. History favors its author.

Explorer David Livingstone is credited with discovering the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Despite the multitude of accounts and documentation of the locals' Mosi-oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders) prior to his arrival. But hey, according to history it seems the locals had never encountered a waterfall a mile wide and hundreds of meters deep whose plunge creates a mini eternal rainforest in the area and the plunge can be heard from a distance away out of sight of the falls themselves.

But yes, it was David Livingstone who "discovered" the falls. Oh, did I mention that from his own account, he was escorted by locals to the falls?

Re: Congolese doctor discovered Ebola, but didn't get credit until now

#13

Post by account73466 » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 11:27 AM UTC

chirau wrote: post #12

What's new here? As an African myself I am not surprised at all. History favors its author. Explorer David Livingstone is credited with discovering the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Despite the multitude of accounts and documentation of the locals' Mosi-oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders) prior to his arrival. But hey, according to history it seems the locals had never encountered a waterfall a mile wide and hundreds of…

Not in the current version of history, see from Wikipedia:

"On this leg he became the first European to see the Mosi-o-Tunya ("the smoke that thunders") waterfall, which he named Victoria Falls after Queen Victoria."

Re: Congolese doctor discovered Ebola, but didn't get credit until now

#14

Post by jlawson » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 11:30 AM UTC

chirau wrote: post #12

What's new here? As an African myself I am not surprised at all. History favors its author. Explorer David Livingstone is credited with discovering the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Despite the multitude of accounts and documentation of the locals' Mosi-oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders) prior to his arrival. But hey, according to history it seems the locals had never encountered a waterfall a mile wide and hundreds of…

Last week I discovered a wonderful sushi restaurant near my work. I told my work friends about it and now we all love it.

It doesn't mean nobody in the world knew about that sushi restaurant before me. It means nobody in my group knew about it, nobody told me, and I found it by personal experience, and shared the information among my community.

So yes, David Livingstone discovered the falls.

We don't constantly have to try to degrade the contributions that western people made to the world just because they're white. Livingstone made huge sacrifices to push on where almost everyone else gave up and he linked together pathways of information that didn't exist before. He did the exploring; he took the risk; he should get credit _for those efforts and sacrifices_ as should the people who sent him. Its ridiculous to try to equate his achievement with the people who were simply born in the areas he explored and lived there as their default state of traditional existence.

Re: Congolese doctor discovered Ebola, but didn't get credit until now

#15

Post by Ntrails » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 11:31 AM UTC

chirau wrote: post #12

What's new here? As an African myself I am not surprised at all. History favors its author. Explorer David Livingstone is credited with discovering the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Despite the multitude of accounts and documentation of the locals' Mosi-oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders) prior to his arrival. But hey, according to history it seems the locals had never encountered a waterfall a mile wide and hundreds of…

It's a bit like discovering the Americas when people already lived there. The falls were discovered and reported for the West by Livingstone.

That doesn't make the discovery less important from a Western history perspective? I guess it's about recognising which truth is being told.

Re: Congolese doctor discovered Ebola, but didn't get credit until now

#16

Post by miracle2k » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 11:46 AM UTC

chirau wrote: post #12

What's new here? As an African myself I am not surprised at all. History favors its author. Explorer David Livingstone is credited with discovering the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Despite the multitude of accounts and documentation of the locals' Mosi-oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders) prior to his arrival. But hey, according to history it seems the locals had never encountered a waterfall a mile wide and hundreds of…

That's similar to the argument you sometimes hear that Columbus didn't discover America - people already lived there. But from the perspective of Europeans, he certainly did. Similarly, it's not surprising you can "discover" a waterfall if you live right beside it.

Surely, humankind can legitimately claim to discover a planet, even if an alien race might have done so before us.

What is maybe fair is to ask in whose name something was discovered, and how we tell these stories. We can't say Christopher Columbus discovered America for mankind, but it was news to a smaller proportion of people.

Re: Congolese doctor discovered Ebola, but didn't get credit until now

#17

Post by megla_ » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 11:47 AM UTC

chirau wrote: post #12

What's new here? As an African myself I am not surprised at all. History favors its author. Explorer David Livingstone is credited with discovering the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Despite the multitude of accounts and documentation of the locals' Mosi-oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders) prior to his arrival. But hey, according to history it seems the locals had never encountered a waterfall a mile wide and hundreds of…

nobody gives a shit

Re: Congolese doctor discovered Ebola, but didn't get credit until now

#18

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 11:51 AM UTC

chirau wrote: post #12

What's new here? As an African myself I am not surprised at all. History favors its author. Explorer David Livingstone is credited with discovering the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Despite the multitude of accounts and documentation of the locals' Mosi-oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders) prior to his arrival. But hey, according to history it seems the locals had never encountered a waterfall a mile wide and hundreds of…

[deleted]

Re: Congolese doctor discovered Ebola, but didn't get credit until now

#19

Post by empath75 » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 12:08 PM UTC

chirau wrote: post #12

What's new here? As an African myself I am not surprised at all. History favors its author. Explorer David Livingstone is credited with discovering the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Despite the multitude of accounts and documentation of the locals' Mosi-oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders) prior to his arrival. But hey, according to history it seems the locals had never encountered a waterfall a mile wide and hundreds of…

In 2004, Somoto canyon in Nicaragua was ‘discovered’ by Czech scientists despite the fact that it’s surrounded by farmland and has a fairly large stream/river running through the middle of it. Locals were well aware it was there.

Re: Congolese doctor discovered Ebola, but didn't get credit until now

#20

Post by iknowalot » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 12:09 PM UTC

chirau wrote: post #12

What's new here? As an African myself I am not surprised at all. History favors its author. Explorer David Livingstone is credited with discovering the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Despite the multitude of accounts and documentation of the locals' Mosi-oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders) prior to his arrival. But hey, according to history it seems the locals had never encountered a waterfall a mile wide and hundreds of…

The thing I find very interesting about ebola, is how it randomly emerges in Africans around mines with extremely valuable resources...

Diamond mine in Liberia,...oh look ebola is killing the villagers somehow.

Uranium mine in Congo,...oh look ebola is killing the villagers somehow.

South African platinum mine... oh look aids is killing the villagers somehow...

I can't quite put my finger on the reason... mining companies would never do this I'm sure /s

#DagHammarskjöld