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They very well could be. That's just it -- we don't know. And when we kill them all off, are we going to be able to reverse it when we find out that the result
by joekrill 11y ago
They very well could be. That's just it -- we don't know. And when we kill them all off, are we going to be able to reverse it when we find out that the result is causing two million deaths per year?
- bryanlarsen 11y agoWhich is why people are studying the issue, writing papers and popular articles, instead of just doing it.
- Turing_Machine 11y agoDespite the link-bait headline, no one is talking about killing off all mosquitos. And yes, gene drives can be reversed.
- cik2e 11y agoUnder what hypothetical scenario would killing off mosquitos cause two million (human?) deaths per year?
- imakesnowflakes 11y agoWhat if the diseases that depend on mosquitoes to spread mutate/evolve themselves to spread via air... You know, "life finds a way" and all that..
- ommunist 11y agoEasy. Untold side effect of MTBe caused infertility in 50% of cases in second generation of black women in treated regions. Entire country was depopulated in 25 years. Like that research article from 2056?
- bryanlarsen 11y agoThe worst man-made ecological disasters in history caused tens of thousands of deaths. We can say with certainty that killing off a few species of mosquitoes will not be worse.
- joekrill 11y agoYou're suggesting that because it's never happened before (that we know of), we can say with _certainty_ it won't happen in the future? Can we go back 100 years and say that about climate change please?
- bryanlarsen 11y ago1 million is a really big number, which is what makes the certainty easy. That's even bigger than projected deaths from climate change.
- pvaldes 11y agoYou certaintyometer needs to be tuned. Around 129.000 people died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and at least 200.000 people killed in Chernobyl until data. And this is a child's play compared with the >85 millions of humans killed by a worst ecological disaster. We can say with certainty that nobody thought in ancient times that those small and clean rodents, living peacefully in the grasslands and steppes of Central Asia were something to worry. Rats in Europe were not unlike the good species of mosquito if we think about it, with their own diseases and new random relationships...