LONGECITY

Incurable bacterial infections are on the rise worldwide, but 90 per cent of multi-resistant infections in the US can still be beaten by at least one drug

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For now.  Our problem is that we're thinking too arrogantly and short-sightedly - and think that we can beat or control evolution itself.  People underestimate the power of the evolutionary arms race among the simplest organisms.  

 

Currently, the only thing we are doing with our pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, antivirals and antibacterials is applying intense selective pressures to the species that annoy us.   We are creating harsh environments for them, the kind of devastating conditions that nearly always trigger punctuated evolutionary events.  Many of the species we are trying to exterminate will continue to adapt and positively select new mutations which grant them resistance - nature demands that they must do this or die.  Then the organisms carrying resistant mutations reproduce, and pass those mutations forward.

Edited by Duchykins, 06 February 2017 - 08:34 PM.