13 ms·

Yeah, but this was very much a just so story.

• jessriedel 5y ago
  Huh, how? It takes scarce resources for the bacteria to produce many of the structures that protect it from antibiotics. Structures that are unused but require resources are selected against, or at the least decay through mutation. This is an extremely common and simple evolutionary effect. Are you using "just so" as a synonym for "suspiciously convenient"? That's not what it means.
  • Fomite 5y ago
    No, I'm using it to mean an untestable (or in this case untested) narrative explanation for a biological phenomenon. There are several prevalent narratives around the evolution of microbes that are taken to be true because they tell a nice narrative story with very little empirical backing, and even less information on things like time frames. "Structures that are unused but require resources are selected against" for example, is something that feels correct, but isn't necessarily true because resistance genes don't exist in isolation. "Community MRSA will lose out to MSSA because of an absence of selective pressure" kept being trotted out because it fit narratively well beyond when it was becoming apparent that wasn't true.
    • jessriedel 5y ago
      I can't find a way to interpret your use of "narrative" that makes your argument work.