Is It Possible That Cancer Is Just the Inherent “Trial and Error” Mechanism of Adaptation?
Question by Joao: Is it possible that cancer is just the inherent “trial and error” mechanism of adaptation?
I’ve been searching and I found that cancer is just a kind of mutation amongst many others. But I wonder if cancer, in a less egocentric point of view, isn’t just the “programing” of evolution, common to all life, making is way through a long and painful “trial and error” mechanism, inherent to itself?
I gave the example of cigarettes, (which isn’t a necessary change in the environment), but still a relative recent habit. And independently of its cause, (which is rooted in addiction), still is a new threat interpreted by our body as a new factor in the surrounding environment.
As another and more descriptive example: You can find that brain tumor had an increased since radio or more recently, when mobile phones arrived which MAYBE is just the starting of the physical evolution for us to start forming a biological kind of “antenna” so that we can continue to use our hands, for instance…
Even if the cancer has a more probability to appear in advance ages, that might be a symptom of a body which has a longer exposition to new hazard conditions, therefore, if the body is still able for reproduction, (even if it is at final stages), it can transmit a more complete genetic encoding.
Best answer:
Answer by Hjælpende Hånd
No.
The mutations which are the actual cancer break-outs are not inherited, making natural selection between them impossible.
Untill we see a cancer that you may benefit from, the genes that makes people more likely to develop cancer will not gain from selective pressure.
Answer by Matt
As far as evolution of a species, cancer is not a helpful mutation, and therefor would not be part of our evolutionary make-up. However, since most cancers occur later in life, any predisposition to develop cancer would already be passed on to future generations before the cancer manifests itself, so it gets a free ride, in spite of the evolutionary disadvantage.
On a cellular level, however, I see cancer as the ultimate endpoint of evolution, with one exception. It kills the host. Oh, but until that point, the cancer cell is king. It reproduces faster, lives longer, eats more, and travels through the body in ways that a similar non-cancerous cell never could.
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