Comment by jforman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jforman | Hacker News Reader

"Davies and Lineweaver are currently testing this prediction by comparing gene expression data from cancer biopsies with phylogenetic trees going back 1.6 billion years, with the help of Luis Cisneros, a postdoctoral researcher with ASU's Beyond Center."

Press releases for untested scientific conjectures (further nerd-rage inducing by calling it a "theory" in official communication) raises a red flag for me: it suggests that the investigators aren't fully skeptical of whether their conjecture actually represents the real world, and increases the probability that they'll introduce bias in their investigation.

The article (http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/2013/jul/01/expo...) is 100% hand-waving imo:

"Could it be, we wonder, that cancer’s predilection for a hypoxic environment reflects the prevailing conditions on Earth at the time when multicellularity first evolved, before the second great oxygenation event?"

"Wondering," alas, is not science! We need a model, a hypothesis, and a well-controlled experiment to actually discern truth.

Religious science types always strike me as odd. There is nothing bad about thinking about things in a new way, and nothing bad about writing a little paper about it - maybe they want to generate excitement, maybe they want to make sure everyone knows they came up with this first, who knows.

But getting an idea out there is in any case a net positive.

Scientific breakthroughs don't start with double blind studies; they start with an idea. To say it with Einstein: Imagination is more important than knowledge.

I only read the link above, but to me (MSc in biology) it totally sounds like a legitimate theory, I can easily see how it makes testable predictions. It may turn out to be wrong, but IMHO it's worth some testing.

"Could it be, we wonder, that cancer’s predilection for a hypoxic environment reflects the prevailing conditions on Earth at the time when multicellularity first evolved, before the second great oxygenation event?"

Could it be that once cells are approximately 2-3 cell-diameters away from a blood vessel they die of hypoxia, and thus cannot break through a basement membrane and achieve metastasis without evolving a tolerance for hypoxia? This is essentially the cancer-specific version of the anthropic principle.

I love it when physicists start spinning yarns about other people's fields.

They are hardly "spinning yarns". Did you miss the part where they were asked to be part of a cross-disciplinary program, along with other physicists, to bring fresh ideas to the field of cancer research? They are doing what they were asked to do, and wrote an article on it. It's hardly a setup for clinical trials in which human lives are at stake, so I think we can, while holding out for evidence that increases the probabilities of certainty in this theory, allow them to do what they've been asked to do.

no, the predilection for hypoxia is due to the warburg effect (which used to be thought of as a cause for cancer but now is accepted as the result of carcinogens, but a 'hallmark' of cancer). Fermentation of glucose in the cytosol is more efficient than using the oxygen-requiring mitochondria - However, it can only occur in less aerobic conditions. So the rapid division of cancer cells is assisted by this shift in metabolism, but that requires anaerobiosis.

According to the article they are simply comparing gene expression from cancer cells to ancient lifeforms, which would directly support the theory.

Seems reasonable to me.

The conjecture is reasonable. My point is that it's inappropriate to trump up an untested conjecture, as it creates a cost to the investigator for not being right. And you don't want to be incentivized in this way during your investigation: you're supposed to be fully skeptical.

> it's inappropriate to trump up an untested conjecture

Like rushing to publish your conjecture of the molecular structure of DNA before it's fully verified with crystallography data?

Just because it was correct doesn't mean it was appropriate.

>According to the article they are simply comparing gene expression from cancer cells to ancient lifeforms, which would directly support the theory.

No it wouldn't. Cancer expresses fundamental genes critical to all multicellular organisms. That is already known so the fact that cancer expresses 'older' genes doesn't prove anything.

It is very clear from the press release and also form his own article on his 'theory' from 2011 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/25/cancer-e... that he doesn't understand evolution.

Consider this nugget of wisdom that is 100% pseudoscience: A century ago the German biologist Ernst Haekel pointed out that the stages of embryo development recapitulate the evolutionary history of the animal. Human embryos, for instance, develop, then lose, gills, webbed feet and rudimentary tails, reflecting their ancient aquatic life styles.

That is wrong, it has been know to be wrong for a hundred years at least and basing a theory on it is ridiculous.

You mean the current scientific consensus doesn't believe that is correct any longer.

Scientific consensus believed bleeding patients was a proper treatment for two thousand years.

Things change.

From a common sense point-of-view it still seems like a legitimate theory to me.

> You mean the current scientific consensus doesn't believe that is correct any longer.

No, I think that what the grandparent meant is that, for all the problems "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" has, it is quite falsifiable in its claims, and they have been falsified. Therefore, its false.

> Scientific consensus believed bleeding patients was a proper treatment for two thousand years.

"Proper" isn't part of a scientific conclusion, and for most of the time bloodletting was an accepted treatment, the scientific method didn't exist (it certainly hasn't for two thousand years), so it couldn't be the subject of a scientific consensus.

Scientific consensus does change, though, but the important thing is why. A theory which loses status as a consensus not because it has been falsified but because a more broadly applicable or parsimonious (two sides of the same coin, really) theory with equivalent predictions (at least, of those that have been tested) insofar as their domains overlap replaces it might still be correct, even though it is no longer the consensus theory. One that is rejected because its testable predictions have been shown to be false is not in the same position.

> From a common sense point-of-view it still seems like a legitimate theory to me.

A theory that comports with "common sense" (i.e., someone's intuition) but whose claims don't stand up to empirical scrutiny does not remain valid merely because it is (for someone) intuitive.

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