book-review – Learning, Science and Society

Today, gentle readers, we combine two of the favourites topos of this blog: Heroes of Learning and Antibiotics research latest. For Liam Shaw is a mighty contributor in both fields. Who is he? Well here is a brief summary of his life ant times from Penguin Books, the publishers of his book Dangerous Miracle: (which of course we urge you to rush out and buy) [1]

Liam Shaw is a biologist researching the evolution and spread of antibiotic resistance. For the past four years he has been a Wellcome funded research fellow at the University of Oxford, and he is also currently an honorary research fellow at the University of Bristol.
His writing has appeared in the London Review of Books, Morning Star, and Private Eye. Dangerous Miracle is his first book.

That’s quite a CV for a very learned man, and we take all he says most seriously indeed. So seriously in fact that we direct your earnest attention to his further thoughts laid out in this admirable article which he has just penned for the Guardian[2] For Liam has a key insight: antibiotics are like fossil fuels. They are OK in themselves: they may even bring great benefits to the comfort and quality of our lives. But both have fallen into the hands of a group of reckless, short term, pleasure seeking, greedy, violent hominins that call themselves Homo sapiens ( a laughable act of vanity) with all the disastrous consequences we face today. Rather wickedly, he points out the hypocrisy of rich nations, who have benefitted so abundantly from a surplus of both fossil fuels and antibiotics now earnestly entreating the poorer nations of the world to be good chaps and cut down on their use. Nice one!

We at LSS still think there is room for hope on the antibiotics question, as out recent blogs have hinted. If the situation has indeed improved since we started, much is due to the work of Liam, Professor Sally Davies and others whose tireless research and campaigning has done so much to slow the decline and possibly turn us around. But we can see no reason to slack up yet, gentle readers. Neither should you.

[1]https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/455232/dangerous-miracle-by-shaw-liam/9781847927545

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/aug/17/why-antibiotics-are-like-fossil-fuels

#microbial antibiotic resistance #medicine #health #microbiology #fossil fuels #global warming #pandemic

Here’s an experiment younger readers can try on their grandparents. Ask them about The Faces and they will probably start on about flamboyant front man Rod Stewart. Ask them about the Small Faces and they will say the same about Steve Marriott. Yet alongside these undoubtedly gifted individuals there played-and, more significantly, wrote-a quieter, slightly self-effacing figure called Ronnie Lane.[1] Who was no less talented, but whose life was cut dreadfully and horribly short by the dreadful disease Multiple Sclerosis at the sadly early age of 51.

Younger readers, if you want to explore the back catalogue of Lane and his various collaborators, we promise you some real treats. The Small Faces were an iconic sound for the modernising London of the 1960s. The Faces were the quintessential good time rockers, whose sense of humour and fun in being alive shines through every album. Lane could bring a wistful, slightly melancholic line as well, giving emotional depth to run alongside the more raucous productions of Stewart and Ronnie Wood. Yet after leaving, Lane never achieved the world-brand status of his erstwhile chums. And before he really found his feet, the disease struck; apparently it was hereditary in the family.

And that , ladies and gentlemen, is the point. Because we say; it shouldn’t have happened like this. We offer this man as one personal example of how chronic disease can rob the world. But MS, like other neurological diseases afflicts millions, making life hell for sufferers and their carers alike. The answer of course is research. And, here’s an article of faith: we think research in one area will spread its benefits into many others.

So now, as a tribute to Ronnie, imagine you are Parka-Clad Mod, speeding on a stylish Italian motor scooter through the streets of swinging London, on your way to your favourite coffee bar. The song paying will be All or Nothing[2] And that’s how we want you to treat the research and discoveries which will one day end this disease forever.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronnie_Lane

[2]https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=small+faces+all+or+nothing&&mid=DB77E21A8419DB96B9F9DB77E21A8419DB96B9F9&&FORM=VRDGAR

#ronnie lane #small faces #the faces #rod stewart #ronnie wood #steve marroitt #mods #multiple sclerosis

Tag: book-review

Heroes of Antibiotics: Liam Shaw and his Dangerous Miracle

Ronnie Lane: why we are into medical research