Aaargh! Physicists! Again!

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/11/20/aaargh-physicists-again/

by ihnorton • 14 years ago

5 1 14 years ago

lnanek2• 14 years ago

Hate to say it, but I have a chembio degree and find the viewpoint that cancer cells use reactivated genes to do what they do brilliant. When cancer starts spreading it is called metastasizing. Often this spreading uses complex functionality of other types of cells like fibroblasts, which tear down and recreate the extra-cellular matrix, or like white blood cells which can squeeze through and move around like an amoeba.

Evolution, and cancer causing mutations that result in a successful cancer, often just randomly breaks and fixes functionality like this and it happens to work. The linked critique has one point where it says "polished exteriors of urbane and civilized modern cells" which is complete nonsense. Modern cells are full of broken crap. Heck, enormous portions are just dropped into the genome from viruses and aren't even human. He really showed his ignorance at that point.

Aaargh! Physicists! Again!

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