4 ms·
evolution is a wrong concept to approach it. cancer is not a separate life form, but a bug in the regeneration system of a complicated life form. it doesn’t exi
by ulbu 3mo ago
evolution is a wrong concept to approach it. cancer is not a separate life form, but a bug in the regeneration system of a complicated life form. it doesn’t exist outside of it, it cannot propagate.
- 8note 3mo agothe single celled dog might beg to differ. sometimes a cancer can then survive on its own back as a single celled organism
- throwaway81523 3mo agoI've heard that some cancers spread by viruses. Viruses do evolve. No idea if that says anything about cancer evolving.
- epistasis 3mo agoCancer researchers generally refer to it as evolution, and I've never heard any complaints from the population geneticists or evo-devo folks about it, so I don't think it's a tremendously controversial way to talk about it. See for example https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1907-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1907-7
- nly 3mo agoYou might want to read this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa