4 ms·
> Making a car that never breaks down is impossible. > In the case of aging and cancer, cure is much better than prevention. There's a non-zero chance that a
by sndean 10y ago
> Making a car that never breaks down is impossible.
> In the case of aging and cancer, cure is much better than prevention.
There's a non-zero chance that a cure for cancer is impossible [0][1]. A "cure" for aging seems even less likely. So it's probably better to prevent, since we know that'll work.
[0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-we-truly-cure-cancer/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-we-truly-cure...
[1] https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/why-havent-we-cured-cancer-yet/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/why-havent-we-cured-cancer-...
- leeoniya 10y ago> There's a non-zero chance that a cure for cancer is impossible "Now try it without the quadruple negative" [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7VvRYtIyRs&t=01m06s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7VvRYtIyRs&t=01m06s
- darawk 10y agoCures for everything are possible. We are just atoms. Nothing prevents rearranging those atoms into any configuration we desire, in principle.
- davidf18 10y agoThat's what I've been saying for years. The transporter in Star Trek simply reassembles atoms.
- SiVal 10y agoThe big theoretical challenge is "restoring" me to a state that has never existed. I want my brain's atoms restored to a young arrangement of atoms in terms of health but while retaining its old arrangement of atoms in terms of learning. There is an existence proof for one or the other but not for both at the same time.
- darawk 10y agoTrue, but there is an existence proof for say, you at 25. And while strictly speaking there's no proof that you could know all the same things you know now, I find it hard to credit the idea that you wouldn't be able to retain your knowledge and your youth simultaneously.
- zip1234 10y agoPrevention is important but is cancer entirely preventable?
- davidf18 10y ago> is cancer entirely preventable? Medicine is messy. Even when we treat a heart attack, generally a person is not fully recovered. We should work on different approaches, but by far the one with the nearest timeframe and the most impact are those that lessen toxins attacking the body (e.g., tobacco), obesity (too much sugar sweetened beverages), use of sunscreens to prevent melanomas, etc.
- gozur88 10y agoNo. If you live long enough, you will get cancer eventually. If you're unlucky, you can get cancer at any age, even if you give over the entire focus of your life to its prevention.
- D-Coder 10y ago"There's a non-zero chance that a cure for cancer is impossible." A quick look at your citations indicates that a cure for cancer is unlikely (because there are many kinds of cancer), but multiple cures for multiple cancers are likely on the way.