Quickies

Skepchick Quickies 5.4

Amanda

Amanda works in healthcare, is a loudmouthed feminist, and proud supporter of the Oxford comma.

Related Articles

11 Comments

  1. I’m reminded of the recent discussion here of skepticism and vegetarian/veganism. Antibiotics in animal feed contributing to the decrease in effectiveness of antibiotics is one of the many reasons I don’t eat meat.

  2. On UTIs: Can someone explain to me the mechanism by which giving a person antibiotics for a non-bacterial infection helps produce resistant strains? I know they’re horribly over-prescribed, but if I don’t have the bacterial infection in the first place, taking antibiotics isn’t going to cause a selection event, is it? (Obviously, lacing livestock feed with antibiotics is just plain suicidal for us as a species.)

    1. My understanding is that typically we have most “harmful” bacteria in/on our systems to varying levels. When you take unneeded antibiotics the bacteria in your system that aren’t immune are killed (working as intended!) but those that have some form of resistance then have an open playing field to start reproducing and interbreeding, strengthening the resistant trait among the total population within you. Eventually the susceptible bacteria have made a come back but there has been a population shift now. Eventually some of those resistant bacteria find a chance to take over (spontaneous infection) or escape the host (cross-contamination) and now exist in the wild. Over time this cycle can build up to create some serious outbreaks of infection.

  3. Amanda

    I also think I saw a documentary on Evolution that was made about the same time as that Disney animation, as you can imagine, it was corny, and it got a lot of its information wrong.

  4. Amanda

    I agree. That story about E-Coli becoming resistant to antibiotics is definitely bad news, but it is something to be expected given the fact that Evolution is a scientific fact. Now Creationists might claim that its just a case of “Micro Evolution” but is there really any good reason not to accept “Macro Evolution” if you accept “Micro Evolution.” There is no evidence of any barrier that would prevent one species from evolving to another through successive generations, given enough time.

    1. “Macro evolution does not exist. It has never been observed in a laboratory.”

      Yes, I’ve actually heard this argument made.

  5. Remember, girls, no matter how you feel you owe it to other people to smile. Yuck.

    Guys, have you ever wondered why women will bite your head off for seemingly no reason or why they seem to expect you to be able to read their minds? There’s a reason for that! You should be able to read the minds of women through their faces. Unfortunately you can’t, because women that don’t smile are constantly corrected and reminded to smile. A woman that wants to let the people around her know she’s in a bad mood might as well be trying to kick of a fashion trend of toilet paper shoe streamers or skirt into pantyhose tucking.

    1. It’s also pretty clear in some of the men I know that they know full well what the woman is upset about, but would rather play dumb and not admit too what they’ve done.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to top button