Comment by uplifter

> An observer says "the infection wants to be resistant"

I can confidently claim that literally nobody says this because a google search for this exact phrase has only one result, and its this thread.[0]

Really though, I have never met a biologist who thought this way. All of the ones I've met and worked with knew that development of antibiotic resistance is not in any way like a decision process, and they usually understood on an intuitive level that bacterial cultures don't have a goal of developing the capability. Its just something that evolves, which is a distinct category of process.

Talking about it the other anthropomorphic way, like you claim is normal and acceptable, just confuses things; it is the opposite of helpful analogy. Infections don't "want" anything, they are better understood using the details of their actual biomolecular mechanics, which are about as far different from how brains work as could be imagined.

[0]https://www.google.com/search?q=%22the+infection+wants+to+be...