Comment by cpleppert | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cpleppert | Hacker News Reader

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>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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