Peer-review has its problems but I don't think the solution is 'we need more people carelessly injecting themselves and others with things with unknown effects'. I think the covid crisis aptly showed that the 'plucky outsider that defies a reactionary authority' archetype doesn't actually exist in real life. And biohacking itself is largely a grift.
Melting_Harps|5 years ago
How so? I think if anything it shows the many flaws of the Nation-State model, and its inability to curtail the hygienic issues (wet markets) from rapid Industrialization in China in the best case scenario, and at worst that this is in fact a weaponized form of the COVID strain created by the CCP.
The CCP has been guilty of many crimes against Humanity, you need only look at Tibet, Xianjing, and Hong Kong to affirm that; moreover the CCP actively tried to spread this into Hong Kong when they were lying to the World about its ability to be transmitted between Humans and then forcing HK to keep its borders open to mainlanders to use a vectors despite HK medical professionals stance (who had to deal with SARS before this) and were dissapearing journalists and punishing physicians who spoke out in the Mainland.
I fail to see what you are seeing, its not like random injections led to this outcome, this is solely a result of malfeasance and corruption of the CCP, which in my view should see them be tried for Crimes Against Humanity.
> And biohacking itself is largely a grift.
I would take this statement more seriously if you didn't do it behind a throwaway so I can see what background you have to substantiate this, so I will just use this opportunity to elucidate some notable Biohackers: Gregor Mendel (the father of Modern Genetics) was a Biohacker with no formal education in Biology; Charles Darwin was the son of generational physicians in England, but detested school and completed a degree in what could best be described as 'general studies.' He dropped out of medical training but remained interested in Botany and Insects, this then turned into him developing his theory of Natural Selection when he took the trips to Galapagos, again Biohacking his way into a theory that quite honestly couldn't hold up without the work of the aforementioned biohacker: Gregor Mendel.
So, you see, Biohackers have come to define Biology and make some of the most notable breakthroughs in the Life Sciences and are hardly a 'grift' if you actually know what you're talking about. Robert Hooke, the man who would invent microscopy and Cell Theory, was a polymath and architect with a deep fascination of Natural Philosophy that too led him to Biohack his way into Scientific prominence.
In a more modern view of Biohackers: Josiah Zayner, a PhD and former NASA researcher at AIMS involved in the terraforming of Martian soil was one of the first to introduce the idea of fecal transplants from patient to patient to alter his gut biome, an notion that had previously been thought to be absurd and has now become mainstream. Not only did he do so successfully, but he was lauded for his efforts by the very same Media that subjected him to a great deal of scrutiny and ridicule, and is what he is best known for, not his PhD in Bio-physics nor his time at NASA. Also worth noting, he came from a rural part of Illinois where he was deeply fascinated with Nature and got see and interact with it from a very young age, and like most of us fell in love with it. He is honestly one of my favorite Humans ever.
He now runs the Odin, and runs a convention called Biohack the Planet.
I can tell you this, many Life Scientists I've known often go into a deep depression sometime around our junior year when we realize that what was sold to us in University was a total farce. I personally had a deep interest, bordeline obsession, with Vitamin D (particularly in inducing apoptosis via P53 in certain Cancer cell lines) and was constantly told by my professors that while it had merit it wouldn't warrant further research because it couldn't be monetized and that it would be in my interest to forget it entirely and move on to a career in Lab benchwork if I didn't want to continue my studies to the MS/PhD level.
Flash forward to today where we see a DIRECT CORRELATION of Vitamin D deficiencies and severe COVID symptoms that require hospitalization and often lead to death.
I was never after fame or recognition, and I knew money was not going to be the deciding factor in pursuing this as I just wanted to contribute and be a part of the study of Biology that I was so enamored of. But the fact that studies like these were never explored is why I detested my time in University the most after all the negative things that took place: that's what hurt the most as I know I will never be as driven as I was back then.
I've done some crazy things before and after, like walking into one of my lab practicals and midterm exams with pieces of glass in my arms as I replaced my tire on the side of the freeway on my way to school after work. I was literally picking some of it out when I was waiting in line to drop off my exam. I've done crazy things before and after, but I wish I still had that kind of drive in my 30s, especially because by then I had already accepted University had let me down and could still some how justify doing that anyway.
Brilliant, young minds get their wings clipped at a time when they are most able and inclined to want to radically change the World, only to be told that what awaits you is the dreary, pathetic World of 'publish or die' mantra of academia that ends up pushing papers that no one reads, much less ever re-creates [1] before you ever get close to being able to receive grants and a lab to do it.
I'd say the World needs Biohackers now more than ever, and I hope we can make that happen as I would absolutely love to be able to teach anyone who wants to listen about Plant, Food and Agriculture Science as I have had a presence in all of those fields despite my background as an Educated and Trained Cellular and Molecular Biologist.
As I said, in terms of the Sciences: Biologists are as punk as it gets and many of us are proud of our motley crew and adventurous history.
1: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39054778
throwaway4666|5 years ago
-Darwin, Mendel etc. are seen as foundational because we as humans need plucky heroes in our narrative of history. But they are anything but. Natural selection did not spontaneously arise as an idea when Darwin put it into written words. Early farmers, herders and semi-nomadic gatherers knew all about artificial selection (which is just natural selection speeded up and driven by humans) and have been doing it for thousands of years, so the knowledge was definitely out there. There are also quite a few ancient texts conjecturing that "man came from apes and the more primitive lifeforms" etc. Of course this is not proper wording for a modern educated scientist, but again, the ideas were there. Only, Darwin was the first person with a name (and what's more, a Western and English name) to notice it, and so he became a legend. Anonymous accounts don't.
-Likewise, there's absolutely no way the Odin guy was the first to come up with the idea of fecal transplants. He's just the first public figure that you've heard of who did, because he's flashy and fancy and trendy and lives in a fancy and trendy place where all the fancy and trendy people congregate. Even excluding the studies suggesting it prior to his stunts, people knew for a while that farm kids eating soil (dirt) from time to time turned out to be suspiciously healthy for their gut.
So I maintain my previous assumption, that biohacking is largely a grift that attempts to repackage previously obtained knowledge from more obscure and less widely acknowledged (read: non-American, non-Western, etc.) sources and fashion it into a cool-looking product to swindle rich people out of their money.
The scientific world doesn't need biohackers, stunt-pullers and other grifters, it needs to acknowledge the humble and the lesser-known and the anonymous common knowledge.