3 ms·
> Cancer requires several mutations to line up in ways that allows cells to start multiplying without constraint - evading normal growth controls and apoptosis
by msiyer 8y ago
> Cancer requires several mutations to line up in ways that allows cells to start multiplying without constraint - evading normal growth controls and apoptosis and the immune system and such.
In that case, either we are engineered badly (genetic) or there are factors that cause cells to go rogue (epigenetic). We still need to find the root cause.
I have a hard time believing there are faults in the way we are designed.
- Symmetry 8y agoIt's not that there's a fault in evolution's design so much as that evolution doesn't really care that much that people die of cancer. Whether or not it could be possible to create a non-senescent humanoid species by evolution evolution has a fixed budget of complexity it can work with given germline mutation rates and the selective pressure our species is under. And reducing germline mutation would mean we would evolve more slowly in the face of new selective pressures like new diseases. People are working on ways to end cancer. Aubrey de Grey has a plan[1] which, unlike his others for fighting aging, I think is totally crazy but hey at least someone is working on it. But its certainly not something that could evolve in nature. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategies_for_Engineered_Negligible_Senescence#Nuclear_mutations/epimutations%E2%80%94OncoSENS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategies_for_Engineered_Negl...
- Nasrudith 8y agoReminds me of the suicide gland of some cephalopods with mating. It is one thing to starve to death while guarding their eggs constantly but an actual gland to kill them? Likely a result of letting their niche be taken by descendants made them more adaptable than ones which lived until other constraints or more or less bad luck (cummulative fatality risks over time) killed them.