CANCER = LIFE

[Anonymous No.4800343]

Is the next stage of human evolution supposed to be immortality through cancer? Think about it. Cancer cells are basically cells which refuse to die. Is the fight against cancer the fight against our own future immortality?

Of course, most mutations are harmful, and cancer is no exception. But is the medical establishment, in its struggle against cancer, really involved in a struggle against human evolution?

[Anonymous No.4800358]

No.
Just no.

[Anonymous No.4800365]

>>4800358
Think about it. Bit by bit, we're finding cancers that are caused by viruses. This is an evolutionary failure on the part of the viruses, which are killing their hosts. A more successful virus will create a "cancer" which, rather than being lethal, in fact grants immortality. Brain and lung tissue don't regenerate, for instance, but a novel brain cancer could sidestep the problem of cerebral atrophy and dementia which will eventually kill you if nothing else does.

[Anonymous No.4800374]

This is very interesting, as using certain traits of biological things such as viruses have already show interesting results. Lets not forget how small pox was defeated by cowpox, and just the other day I read this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/health/13gene.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

[Anonymous No.4800381]

>>4800374
The scary thing about this is that people talk about cancer like it's an infection. It's your own body's cells.

[Anonymous No.4800407]

>>4800343
>Cancer cells are basically cells which refuse to die.
Confirmed for high schooler.

[Anonymous No.4800414]

Leaving aside the extremely improbable evolutionary viral genetic engineering process you're describing; cancer cells universally have borked functionality, the very factors that allow them to grow indefinitely means they don't play nice with other cells (hogging nutrients, don't specialize like they're supposed to etc.) and you can't build an organism out of them. At least not in the sense where it would have a brain, eyes, muscle cells, fat cells, etc.

If you want a blob of immortal cells you can keep alive in a nutrient bath, well we already have those, that's exactly what we do with the strains we study. Most of them were siphoned off patients years ago and have been replicating and being spread around by researchers ever since.

[Anonymous No.4800415]

You are the cancer that is making /sci/ immortal.
<span class="math">._{(not\ really})[/spoiler]

[Anonymous No.4800418]

Might intereset you, OP:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa

All hail the master race.

[Anonymous No.4800419]

>>4800407
> cancer is a family of diseases... all involving unregulated cell growth
> If significant error occurs, the damaged cell can "self-destruct" through programmed cell death, termed apoptosis. If the error control processes fail, then the mutations will survive and be passed along to daughter cells.

problem?

[El Anon No.4800420]

>>4800343
>Cancer cells are basically cells which refuse to die

Thats like saying that zombies are humans that refuse to die.

idiot.

[Anonymous No.4800423]

>>4800414
Oh, sorry, I wasn't trying to suggest that we would engineer such a thing. Though if we could, of course, that'd be awesome.

[Anonymous No.4800426]

>>4800420
zombies are obviously the next phase of human evolution, though. But they're fictional, cancer isn't.

[Anonymous No.4800427]

Cancer is more like an evolutionary dead end than an evolutionary 'pinnacle', really. You're right - Cancer cells do develop through evolution, and they are essentially cells that will keep dividing. However, in doing this, they refuse to play nice with other cells, meaning that they'll eventually exhaust their host and kill it and themselves in the process.

Think of it like this: Multicellular organisms are essentially groups of different types of cells that have learned to collaborate through evolution. Going back to the 'selfish' notion of single cell types competing with each other is more like devolution than evolution.

>But is the medical establishment, in its struggle against cancer, really involved in a struggle against human evolution?

And that's just stupid, the answer is no.

[Anonymous No.4800442]

>Cancer cells are basically cells which refuse to die

This makes no sense, OP. If you were to use some metaphor to it, you could say that it is ironic cancer can kill since it is an excess of life. Cancer cells die all the same, the problem is they reproduce too much.

You can't use cancer to live forever because you need a balance in all the sorts of cells you have in your body. If one intestine tissue cell goes mad and produces millions of intestine tissue cells, that could only create lots of such cells, because you are not only composed by intestine tissue.

If you were to "live forever" in the way you suggest you'd have to cultivate each type of cell and have some mechanism to place it where it belongs. It works for creating new teeth, but not a whole body

[Anonymous No.4800448]

>>4800442
Yes, I have not denied that all existing forms of cancer are, in fact, harmful mutations. You might have noticed that when I said, in the OP,
> Of course, most mutations are harmful, and cancer is no exception

How many creatures had to die before the eye was completed?

[Anonymous No.4800445]

>>4800427
There are no evolutionary dead ends. For example, some cancers have become infectious and spread to other hosts, becoming competitive parasites in their own right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_transmissible_venereal_tumor

[Anonymous No.4800461]

Cancer kills the body with its twisted metabolism, however we could try to develop the "immortality" of its cells into healthy ones, maybe through altering DNA. Cancer as we know it cannot replace brain or any other healthy organ so yeah, it is to be fought.

[Anonymous No.4800462]

>>4800343
cancer cell are cells that are pretty much fucked up and do things they shouldnt do, oh and they dont work well together. They are chaos, they are idiotic, and they are useless.

you know, just like OP

[Anonymous No.4800465]

>>4800448

No organism had to die out of cancer to build an eye. Cancer != mutations. Cancer is something that happens when very very specific wrong mutations combine in a cell. In fact it is so improbable that you usually live lots of years before any cell develops that.

I.e., many types of cancer rely on a mutation related to the production of a proteine which prevents the cell from reproducing (like a semaphore). Mutations can affect to the production of ANY protein since that is what DNA is for, to code the building of proteins. The ones that regulate the celular cycle (reproduction) are a very very very very small subset, so you can't really relate cancer and mutation like that

[Anonymous No.4800478]

>>4800461
nice, but you know that your cells need to die, right? You are not the same person you were 10 years ago. New cells already replaced the old ones.
Also, if you wanted inmortality you will have to choose at what age you want inmortality. But you cant because cell in your body reproduce and die at different timeframes

[Anonymous No.4800510]

I'm currently diagnosed with colon cancer, fuck this life. wish i had a time machine

[Anonymous No.4800511]

>>4800465
> No organism had to die out of cancer to build an eye.
Who knows all the lethal mutations that happened between no-eye and modern eye?

[Anonymous No.4800632]

> evolution
> stages