News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Some Proteins Change Their Folds to Perform Different Jobs. Parent comment

Re:Some Proteins Change Their Folds to Perform Different Jobs by natechols on Thursday February 04, 2021 @09:55AM (#26025794)
One of my pet peeves is science journalism abusing the active voice, often in ways that almost anthropomorphize the process. The absolute worst are phrases like "Nature designed this protein to...", which I have seen otherwise reasonable, rational writers toss about carelessly. (It's like the inverse of the passive voice used to describe police shootings: "the suspect was hit by gunfire", etc.)
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Some Proteins Change Their Folds to Perform Different Jobs by 0_____0 on Thursday February 04, 2021 @09:58AM (#26025821)
A reasonable reader will implicitly understand that the proteins have not, in fact, acquired sentience.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Some Proteins Change Their Folds to Perform Different Jobs by blix on Thursday February 04, 2021 @10:18AM (#26026007)
This is what I tell myself every time I read an HN comment written by a collection of proteins.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Some Proteins Change Their Folds to Perform Different Jobs by nate_meurer on Thursday February 04, 2021 @11:08AM (#26026605)
I don't normally meta-comment on other comments, but this one is superb. It took me a moment to soak it in.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Some Proteins Change Their Folds to Perform Different Jobs by uoaei on Thursday February 04, 2021 @02:10PM (#26028682)
Based on my experience with otherwise reasonable readers who are relatively naive when it comes to biology, this is not the case.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Some Proteins Change Their Folds to Perform Different Jobs by natechols on Thursday February 04, 2021 @10:42AM (#26026271)
True! Problem is, there are a lot of unreasonable readers too, many of them having strong opinions about natural versus directed processes.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Some Proteins Change Their Folds to Perform Different Jobs by passivate on Thursday February 04, 2021 @02:18PM (#26028753)
Well, you can't reason with unreasonable people :) That's the actual problem. Also, I strongly disagree with your view that a lot of them are reading scientific articles. The root problem is lack of science education/curiosity which needs to be addressed specifically, rather than forcing the rest of the world to adopt certain phrasing.

Personally I like the romanticism/poetic style, it makes articles seem less bland, which makes me want to read them even more.

[ Parent | on HN ]