Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period” • Hacker News Board

Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”

#411

Post by PeterisP » Sun, Oct 27, 2013, 1:27 PM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #345

enraged_camel wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "active misleading." On the contrary, the usage of the word "desire" in this context aids layman understanding of the subject.

That's your opinion, not mine; however it's exactly talk like this that has led to most laymen not understanding evolution. They don't get that it's being dumbed down for them and that's not their fault, it's the fault of people who casually anthropomorphize things because they wrongly think it helps to clarify; it does not. Understanding comes from truth, not casual simplifying lies.

Simplifying analogies often do help understanding new concepts, a big part of pedagogy theory is based on that.

Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”

#412

Post by PeterisP » Sun, Oct 27, 2013, 1:45 PM UTC

taliesinb wrote: post #97

tokenadult wrote: post #70

The interviewed expert has very good credentials and clinical experience to be talking about what he is talking about, and his warnings should be taken seriously. But even at that, the fallacious teleological language he uses about biological evolution by natural selection suggests a way out of this problem. When he says, "Bacteria, like any living organism, want to survive," and "So anything that we do to try and ki…

Is there any indication that the organisms we have "stolen" antibiotic molecules from might become themselves suffer disruption from bacteria that they can no longer kill? Fungi are involved in many symbiotic relationships that we indirectly depend on, for example the fixation of nitrogen for plant growth. One imagines a future in which we have a dwindling supply of biodiversity to 'sacrifice' in order to keep oursel…

We're using only a subset of antibiotics that doesn't kill people as well - I'm not a biologist, but the cells are different enought that there should be many chemicals that are safe for fungi, kill bacteria, but aren't usable for people.

Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”

#413

Post by PeterisP » Sun, Oct 27, 2013, 1:51 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #148

kintamanimatt wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not violence. They're not being beaten with a crowbar.

It's the threat thereof that persuades compliance. If you try hard enough to do & keep doing something illegal, there is no limit which the state is unwilling to go to in coercing compliance.

If you're arguing it that way, then giving livestock antibiotics or dumping polluted waste is also violence by your definition: by these actions, they're coercing others to die without their permission.

Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”

#414

Post by toufka » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 9:31 PM UTC

craigyk wrote: post #298

toufka wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bacteriophages are very much the answer to the titular problem. Instead of finding tiny little lethal molecules, we will likely end up actually designing machine-like phages to kill the causes of our illnesses. They're easy to select for, quite good at what they do, and are some of the most approachable objects in synthetic biology, currently. And they are much more amenable to continued use than the 3 or 4 scaffoldi…

The biggest problem with phages is they can be quite specific. Antibiotics put phage research out to pasture because a single, easy to mass produce small molecules were capable of wiping out enormous varieties of bacteria. With phages you'd need a large library to counter different bacteria, you'd have to successfully identify the bacteria which is causing the problem which may require culturing. If you wanted to mai…

Which in the long run is a far more elegant solution. Rather than "Kill All The Things!" (including your target), it's "Kill the Bad Guy!" - but you have to know who he was.