From Mel Greaves et al. at BNC Biology:
Paraphrasing Dobzhansky’s famous dictum, I discuss how interrogating cancer through the lens of evolution has transformed our understanding of its development, causality and treatment resistance. The emerging picture of cancer captures its extensive diversity and therapeutic resilience, highlighting the need for more innovative approaches to control. Abstract: )
Jonathan Wells, author of Zombie Science, offers,
Greaves’s article is more silliness from “Darwinian medicine.”
Greaves: “An evolutionary logic pervades all major areas of cancer sciences.”
Me: So evolutionary logic can explain the progression of a deadly disease. How does this help us explain the origin of new species, organs, and body plans—except, perhaps by invoking the opposite of evolution?
Greaves: “The majority [of cancers] are potentially preventable. For example by prudent avoidance, modified behaviour or prophylaxis. Secondly most cancers are curable by surgery or radiotherapy if detected early when localized.”
Me again: Evolutionary logic contributes nothing to these approaches to avoiding or curing cancer. So nothing in the prevention or cure of cancer makes sense in the light of evolution.
Wells expects Darwinians to suddenly realize the need to make sense. But because they are accepted as pomo scientists, they need not make sense.
Evolutionary medicine can just be politically correct nonsense.
See also: “Core principles of evolutionary medicine” still clinically useless
Evolutionary medicine: Insomnia in the elderly is due to evolution?
and
What exactly does “evolutionary medicine” do that requires this expensive outlay?
Not sure why this headline needs the “wow”.
The application of evolutionary biology methods and principals to cancer biology have become increasingly important in recent years. I think much of Darwinian medicine is pretty useless (at least clinically) but evolutionary epidemiology and the evolutionary biology of cancer are two obvious exceptions.
Dobzhansky’s Phrase should be rewritten as:
“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of reproduction.”
…then,
“Nonthing in cancer makes sense except in the light of reproduction.”
Now it makes sense.
as to his claim from Greaves’s article:
Actually, it might interest Mel Greaves to know that Dobzhansky’s famous article, “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution,” is actually a Theological argument that has little to nothing to do with actual biology:
Realizing that, then it makes perfect sense that Darwinists would claim cancer as proof of evolution. The argument from Darwinists goes like this, “Evolution must be true because a loving God would never allow such a evil thing as cancer to exist.” And their you go, no experimental or mathematical proof needed. Just claim that you know exactly what God would and would not allow and call it a day.
In so far as knowledge of Darwinian processes allows advances in medicine, those advances come solely from the realization that Darwinian processes are excellent at breaking things in biology but are woefully inadequate when it comes to creating any new functional complexity in biology. It is in realizing the strict limits of Darwinian processes to ever create new functional complexity that effective treatments can be developed that combat diseases. This is since medicines can be administered in precise, and knowledgeable, ways that ‘destructive’ evolutionary processes will never be able to overcome.
Using Behe’s ‘Edge of Evolution’ to Fight Disease (even Cancer):
The multiple drug cocktail that has been so effective in controlling HIV uses much the same strategy of being beyond the ‘edge of evolution’ that Dr. Behe has elucidated:
Your say-so is meaningless. Try to actually make your case.
Cancer most definitely sheds light on evolution.
Variation offers immediate selective advantage. Variant exploits selective advantage, resulting in extinction of not only itself and its base type, but its entire ecosystem. Wait, what?
ET,
The paper in the OP includes some of the information. This older review is a nice summary of how evoluionary principals can be brought to bear on cancer biology. Here is a recent review of how using phylogenetics in tumour biology has helped us understand the progression of cancers. The first paper to take this phylogenetic approach has been cited > 4,000 times, which suggests it’s been a useful method!
There are many more studies on these topics if you want to search for them.
Using “evolutionary principles” in the research of cancer, to the extent they are believed to be true for how all life came to be on earth, are only bound to mislead researchers rather than inform successful treatments:
Again, as mentioned in post 3, In so far as knowledge of Darwinian processes allows advances in medicine, those advances come solely from the realization that Darwinian processes are excellent at breaking things in biology but are woefully inadequate when it comes to creating any new functional complexity in biology. It is in realizing the strict limits of Darwinian processes to ever create new functional complexity that effective medical treatments can be developed to combat diseases. This is since medicines can be administered in precise, and knowledgeable, ways that ‘destructive’ evolutionary processes will never be able to overcome.
A particularly clear example of ‘evolutionary principles’ misleading researchers is in animal testing (including testing on monkeys), where billions of dollars have been wasted because of the false Darwinian assumption of common descent:
i.e. The overall physiology of different species are drastically different:
This drastic difference in physiology includes humans and chimpanzees:
Does this simply not show that population genetics is useful at the microevolutionary scale, which nobody really disputes?
The problem as soon as Dobzhansky gets quoted is the old failure to define what “evolution” means in context. Does “The origin of Species” cast any light on cancer, or cancer on the history of life? No.
Does the way genes vary in populations give insights that apply to cancer? Yes. Hooray for Gregor Mendel.
Of course there’s a link between cancer and evolution:
“Evolution is the Cancer on the science of Biology”
See? It all makes sense.
cornu, Methinks that you are equivocating. There isn’t anything about cancer that requires “knowing” that Common Descent is true. There isn’t anything about cancer that requires “knowing” that natural selection and other blind, mindless processes produced the diversity of life.
The essence of cancer and evolution is:
“Mutations cause cancer and destroy function.”