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78 Comments
- Mujokan, on 07/04/2009, -1/+21Mostly we get it after the prime age for reproduction.
- cersad, on 07/04/2009, -0/+17Are you a troll? Forgive me, I can't tell if you're trying to be funny or are just misinformed.
Cancer is not the same as a virus. Some viruses cause cancer, but cancer itself is made of your own body cells that have gone under some sort of alteration causing them to no longer play by the same rules as all of the other cells. When cells go bad, your body instructs them to die; cancer cells ignore this and instead "hijack" your body signals to help them grow. Of course, your body can't sustain them, so you die as a result.
Viruses and bacteria are foreign bodies made of foreign DNA or RNA that attack your body in different ways. Nothing at all similar to cancer; the suspected link to viruses is because viruses mess with their host cell DNA, causing mutation. - Walwyn, on 07/03/2009, -1/+13Shouldn't Evolution, in turn, turn us away from being cancerous?
- wastelander, on 07/04/2009, -0/+12Actually, since our ancestors rarely lived past 40 (before eaten by a tiger or such) evolution pretty much ignores anything that occurs beyond that point.
stupid ancestors.. - ConcernedCanuck, on 07/03/2009, -2/+11evolution and Monsanto... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_OJcPKEYDE
- rti9, on 07/03/2009, -2/+10Let's stop evolving and then we will be safe!
- suntzusputnik, on 07/04/2009, -0/+6mutation dumbass, mutation
- Strenoth, on 07/04/2009, -0/+6Not really. Cancer starts as something tripping off wrong inside a cell, but that is not necessarily a mutation in our genetic code. To my understanding, the error usually occurs during the encoding of proteins, from otherwise normal DNA. Once the bad encoding happens, the cell's mechanisms go out of control.
ironically, what goes haywire to create cancer, is the growth factor. The cell consumes everything it can, and multiplies as much as it can. And all those cells carry the bad encoding too, as the protein has now been replicated through out the cell, so all the resulting cells continue to spread and multiply while ignoring the self-destruct commands being issued by your immune system, which then tries to go in and fight it directly. - djphilos, on 07/04/2009, -5/+11Many cancers are due to lifestyle choices.
- awesomeideas, on 07/04/2009, -0/+5Its called a joke.
- rocknog, on 07/04/2009, -0/+5Well, you're forgetting the advantages to having non-breeding women around who can assist in the raising of a family without creating any extra burden through new children themselves. When the subject of evolution comes up, I think people often overlook the fact that humans are social animals, and I think that fact has a much greater impact on us than many realize.
- LeviTheSmith, on 07/04/2009, -0/+5"Are you a troll?"
He is syntaxgs. Your profile says you've been here since '07 so I don't know how you missed him.
http://digg.com/users/syntaxgs/history/comments - prateeko, on 07/04/2009, -1/+5It would only really select against cancers that happen before (or prevent) mating age. Anything that comes after is often not as important to the passing on of ones genes. Since humans raise their young to a late age you'd really expect to see fewer cancers until people are old enough to have mated and raised their young to a somewhat independent (by natural/wild, not modern standards) age...
- dalnet22, on 07/04/2009, -0/+4Evolution doesn't see that we have a problem and then try to avoid it. Natural selection and variation allow for randomness. The people who randomly get cancer will have less chance to survive than those who did not get it.
- diggcensors, on 07/03/2009, -2/+6The alternative to cancer is aging.... cells stop growing and proliferating to reduce the chance of cellular mechanisms breaking down and causing cancer. So in a way we have adapted away from being cancerous.
At the same time, a lack of genetic variability would stop evolution and limit our successfulness of a species. Though, it could be argues I suppose that we have our degree of technology has displaced the need for our own genetic evolution. - suntzusputnik, on 07/04/2009, -1/+4the *****?
- jtinz, on 07/04/2009, -0/+3Not necessarily. If the cancer sets on at an age where you're no longer fertile, it has little impact.
The structure of DNA allows for many different kinds of mutations. Many of these mutations will cause cancer, but they also allow for faster adaption of the species. Species in stable ecological niches accumulate less changes in their DNA and are less prone to get cancer. Sharks are an example. I suspect the structure of their DNA is subtly different and less likely to mutate. - carl0ski, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2you mean like
diet to bowel and stomach cancer?
High exposure to powerful ions and compounds like mercury lead or arsonic?
some non smoker singers receiving throat cancer
at the end without knowing exact cause of some cancers you cannot rule out lifestyle as the cause.
Home common was breast cancer 50 and 100 years ago. can we rule out brassiers from causing cancer,
maybe but maybe not - cersad, on 07/04/2009, -2/+4Mujokan is right. If we get cancer after we reproduce, it won't matter as much for our evolution (in theory). Of course, this doesn't explain why women live decades after they hit menopause, so it's safe to say there's a good deal about human evolution that we don't understand yet.
- Quaestor44, on 07/06/2009, -0/+2Its the whole "buy now, pay later" mentality.
We have health and vitality when we're young, around the time of reproduction--which is why cancer doesn't crop up till later than life, usually after our reproductive years are over. There's a much stronger selection pressure during our reproductive years because it directly affects our offspring. Thus, genes that resisted deleterious mutations during these years were conserved.
We aren't having as many kids when we're older, hence, no selection pressure and cancer mutations are rampant.
damn telomeres.
They've done studies in beetles where they delayed their reproductive stages to later points in life and it actually led to healthier years down the road. Humans seem to be following the same path by having kids in their later 20's and 30's. Who knows--give it a couple thousand years and cancer rates could decrease on their own - cowfish234, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2stop eating veggies for a few years and BAM colon cancer...or at least diarrhea for a few years. basically, don't give your body a reason to replace the old crap and you'll ultimately be more susceptible to cancer
*and that's just one of many ways. - rockon4life45, on 07/04/2009, -1/+3Excuse my 10th grade anatomy knowledge (i don't remember much from that time of my life) but isn't cancer just a really bad mutation, and don't things mutate all the time? including us?
- Sputs, on 07/04/2009, -2/+4Holy hell that's stupid. Mutations are good AND bad, they've never been just one or the other. And this isn't a specific mutation/evolution, the article is citing that evolution has led us to be more prone to developing cancer (a non-gametic mutation, which in itself has nothing to do with evolution, aside from specific genes that may lead to cancer susceptibility)
- mparker21311, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2Yeah, but it's genetic too. Which as far as I'm concerned, that knowledge completely destroyed my belief in god.
- WishItWerePaul, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2check out Eva Vertes' ideas (follow links to her TED speech) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Vertes
basically she proposes that cancer is self-repair mechanism went awry. meaning cancer is supposed to be our friend, except its under-evolved and isnt working for the most part. it does, she proporses, work in the muscle, which there are no cancers of muscle that we know of (and i'm just repeating what my understanding of what she said is, i'm not a doctor) - Thrustmaster, on 07/04/2009, -0/+2Nature's way of saying "escape natural selection, will you?!"
- redmannine, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1hmmm, I'm thinking the growing number of new chemical compounds that folks are exposed to that are developed every year might have something to do with it
- Coinspinner, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1And that's when we discovered the cannabis causes cell apostosis via CB2 receptor cells.
And we learned to grow it, and began our co-evolution with it.
Then the US Government took it away and forced cancer rates back up. - WishItWerePaul, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1check out a talk from Susan Blackmore, where she re-states the Darwin's law in a very understandable way:
- if you have creatures that vary
- and if there's a struggle for life such that nearly all of these creatures die
- and if the very few that survive pass on to their offspring whatever it was that made the survive
- then those offspring must be better adapted to the circumstances in which all this happened.
or, to distill even more:
if there exist variation, selection and heredity, then there must be evolution.
very enlightening talk, highly recommended (its actually about memetics) - inactive, on 07/06/2009, -0/+1 This would also pertain to gays..While not reproducing,they would also be useful in caring for off spring as well.
- cersad, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1silfiriel:
The thing is, it's not that simple. UV rays are damaging to cells because of the physics of DNA--parts of molecules in DNA, like several complex organic chemicals, can be incited to move around a bit more when a certain wavelength of light hits them. In DNA's case, UV rays with wavelengths around or below 250 nm tend to cause these reactions, which in turn mess up the DNA strand. Cells have natural repair mechanisms to fix this damage, but enough UV radiation can kill or mutate most cells. It's not an evolutionary thing, because nearly every cell with DNA can be harmed with UV light, regardless of species.
Likewise, air pollution is a problem because the chemicals in the pollution disrupt the chemicals your body uses as signals, which causes the cells to start misbehaving. The cancer isn't our body trying to fight back, it's our body cells being damages really badly. - cersad, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1It makes sense. Evolution isn't a perfect mechanism... and we all know genetic mutations can cause cancer. These results are excellent proof to support this sort of conjecture. Maybe it'll even help us find a way to prevent or treat some common forms of cancer.
- mface, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1Yep, natures way of controlling rapid population growth. Humans are a inventive bunch tho.
- cyphin6, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1Cancer is just a mistake in DNA transcription causing a cell to no longer go into Apoptosis. This is not something evolution can counteract easily.... Why does Digg attract stupid articles like this.
- theholyraptor, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1HPV the result of lifestyle choices? You don't have to have indiscriminate sex with lots of people to end up with it.
- Killbot2015, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1Is this guy ***** serious?
- wozup, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1BILLY MAYS HERE, ***** YOU
- emjaymj, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1@theholyraptor
You don't have to smoke to get lung cancer either, moron. That doesn't mean smokers aren't more predisposed to lung cancer than non-smokers.
The chances of getting HPV are much lower if a women only has one partner during her lifetime as opposed to 200. Obviously this does not mean she will avoid the disease if she only has one sexual partner, just like it doesn't mean she will contract the disease with 200 partners. But what this implies (on a large scale) is that there is a group of women out there with cervical cancer who would not be dealing with the disease if their lifestyle did not include discriminate sex.
Close to 100% of cervical cancer diagnoses can be linked to HPV. 15% of lung cancer patients are non-smokers. When the causal link appears to be even stronger than the link between smoking and lung cancer, that should tell you something. - MrOmniscient, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1Our technology has somewhat circumvented the processes of biological evolution in our species. Many who would have died before reproducing without the intervention of technology, have lived to produce additional generations.
While I would not argue against helping people survive these deficiencies, there is price to be paid by our species for these actions. - ieatpoptarts, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1You gain DNA errors all the time. Luckily, most will get repaired. As you age the errors you gathered throughout your life add up and your repair systems don't work as well, possibly leading to cancer. Presently, humans are living longer than ever thanks to modern medicine, which explains the increase in cancer cases. Evolution didn't make us more cancer prone, aging does.
- NoTiG, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1I think this is a trick question... If evolution did not happen we would still be single celled organisms... afaik single celled organisms cannot themselves get cancer or disease.. therefore I think evolution itself which creates complexity becomes vulnerable so it is not just our evolution but that of every living creature that this happens.
- mparker21311, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1Evolution doesn't work that way, even if we seem to be losing the traits we desire... it's still called evolution.
- Sputs, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1Actually it doesn't have to do with the transcription/translation process of proteins. It occurs because, damage will occur to the DNA within a cell that then causes unregulated mitosis, and normal factors that are meant to induce apoptosis in cancerous cells are for whatever reason, non-functioning.
This pretty much means; DNA damage, mitosis, neoplastic state of cells, metastases of cancerous body, secondary tumor, etc... - Lahonda, on 07/06/2009, -0/+1The great scam being foisted on everyone is that no one is being told that cancers are triggered predominantly by low-level infections.
- emjaymj, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1On a long enough timescale, cancer IS inevitable. In fact cancer shares something in common with evolution: the both owe their progress to the fact that cells replicate, and that the process is liable to making errors (mutations). In both cases, they are simple copying errors, which are unavoidable.
This is pretty much what cancer is, a cell that's been damaged but still able to replicate. What often makes cancer dangerous is when the cell is damaged in such a way that it's unable to trigger its own death and/or grow at a rate much faster than they are supposed to, both of which makes it form into giant masses. - mutantbarbie, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1i think a lot of people are missing the point of the article. a lot of proteins produced by the genome are dna-repair enzymes and things like that, which are responsible for maintaining correct coding in the genome when the cell replicates. less effective dna-repair enzymes lead to higher evolutionary rates-----> we evolve faster, and therefore our offspring are more genetically varied in fewer generations, etc...
but more error-prone replication will obviously lead to higher cancer susceptibility.
basically they're saying that in a lot of tumours they studied, the mutations were in the same genetic regions as ones that tended to vary a lot throughout the course of evolution. these "unstable" spots seemed to allow our ancestors to survive under unfavourable conditions. but today, that genetic instability is partially responsible for cancer predisposition.
had to defend the article... - inactive, on 07/05/2009, -0/+1Not unless their genes prevent them from reproducing.
- Strenoth, on 07/05/2009, -0/+1Aha, so I was a little off. I could have sworn it was possible with out direct damage to the DNA structure. Oh well.
- djphilos, on 07/06/2009, -0/+1How is saying "many" *****? Read about cancer or hell just read these comments and you will probably learn a lot more than you think you know.
- emjaymj, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1I think cervical cancer is another huge example. Nearly every case of it is caused by some strain of HPV, which is an STD. So it shouldn't be too hard to see how promiscuity can be linked with cervical cancer.
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