Pediatric Cancers: Their Evolutionary Significance

The idea that selected changes in Bilaterian's bodies would cause an increase in juvenile cancer rates has been part of my theory from its inception; it was clearly expressed in the 1984 Journal of Theoretical Biology Letter as it was in manuscripts submitted to other journals as early as 1979.   

Here is a relevant paragraph from the 1984 Letter: 

Adaptive pro-oncogenes are those that imparted some survival benefit to the germ line in spite of a likely increase in juvenile deaths from cancer fol­lowing their selection.  Increased somatic complexi­ty, greater body size, ex­tended pre-reproductive life and migration to more mutagenic habitats occurred in so many Bilaterian lineages that they can be confi­dently judged to have been adaptive.  It is, however, most probable that selection of such characters was followed by increases in the incidence of somatic mutational events in juve­niles and resulted in in­creased losses of genetic material to cancer.

On The Cambrian Explosion

This definition from Wikipedia will suffice: The Cambrian explosion, or less commonly Cambrian radiation, was the relatively short evolutionary event, beginning around 542 million years ago in the Cambrian Period, during which most major animal phyla appeared, as indicated by the fossil record.

What caused this sudden emergence of complex animals, the origin of the first Bilaterians?

Feedback Loops, One-Eyed Thinking and Turbo-Charged Selection

Put on your thinking caps!

That's an idiomatic expression used by American schoolteachers to encourage children to give careful consideration to a particular problem.

Feedback Loops 

The standard version of the Neo-Darwinian theory of Bilaterian evolution asserts—implicitly but emphatically—that  during the ~550 million years of Bilaterian history there was no need for a  feedback loop connecting the smallest components of the developing animals—the individual somatic cells—to the entities controlling the production of those cells—the evolving gene pools. My proposed major additive amendment to that theory asserts, to the contrary, that because of the spectacular complexity found throughout the Bilateria and the exquisite precision of cellular construction evident during development of all individual specimens, a theory pretending to explain their existence demands it. I have concluded that such a feedback loop has existed since the origin of the Ur-Bilaterians and that it has played a critical, central role throughout evolutionary time. 

Feedback was initiated by lethal juvenile cancer, a process that began in a single somatic cell, a cell that had been imperfectly developed. We can assert that the pre-malignant cell—at a point in time concurrent with (or immediately prior to) its transformation to the cancerous state—was always maldeveloped; carcinogens are mutagens and mutagens are carcinogens. (1) Cancer never begins in perfectly-formed cells.

A Prohibited Animal

According to Karl R. Popper, in comparing two competing theories, the one that forbids more occurrences in the natural world—that lists more possible refutations—is superior to one that forbids fewer. (1)

In Chapter Thirteen of Cancer Selection I describe three separate and distinct refutations of my proposed fundamental amendment to the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution. In one refutation I describe an imaginary animal, one that possesses a constellation of particular characteristics, each one of which can be found in abundance in Nature, and assert that such an animal cannot exist; find one forbidden specimen and my theory is refuted.

Who Has Been Visiting This Site?

Now that the site has accumulated a few thousand page-views, it might be interesting to view a summary of visitors' geographic location.

    USA                               57.4%
    Russia                           10.8
    Germany                      10.6
    France                             4.8
    United Kingdom             4.0
    Ukraine                           4.0
    China                              4.0
    All Other                         4.4 
    
    Total                           100.0%