The Chapter Five Argument: Explaining Two Megafacts

This is a re-posting in a slightly different form, of an essay originally published in 2009.

I present several arguments in Cancer Selection in favor of my theory, and devote an entire chapter to what I consider the strongest. It’s Chapter Five.

The argument is based on two, to coin a phrase, megafacts about the history of the Bilaterians – the complex animals – that now exist or that existed in the past.

This is the first megafact: No Bilaterian animal that bred—no animal that left behind any descendants —died as a juvenile. Not a single one. Juvenile animals—by definition—are incapable of sexual reproduction, therefore every one of those breeders—all the ancestors of every animal alive today, every ancestor of every dinosaur or other extinct animal—survived into adulthood. Every breeder, in other words, was the beneficiary of meticulous—perfect—development. [See Note.]

Every statement in the prior paragraph is true for the simple reason that each is tautological.

The Axillae of San Stefano

I have only ever attended two scientific meetings, both of them annual conferences of AAAS, The American Association for the Advancement of Science. The first meeting was in 1982 and it was held in Washington DC. 

 

The reason I traveled from Manhattan to attend that conference stemmed from the discovery of oncogenes which had recently been reported in several newspapers. I had begun writing in 1978 my theory about lethal juvenile cancer’s role in the origin and evolution of complex animals and by 1982 I had written seven or eight versions. In all of those drafts I postulated the existence of cancer triggers in all Bilaterians’ normal somatic cells and after reading that some cancer theorists (but no evolution theorists) had also postulated the existence of such triggers, I started to call them by the scientific term, oncogenes.  

Pleased to learn that my hypothesized genes had actually been identified, I sent a copy of my latest draft to the reporter at New York’s Newsday who had written one of the earliest reports. My hope was that he might publish something about my idea. A few days later I telephoned him and after saying he did not understand my theory he made a suggestion. He told me about the annual conference of AAAS which included something called a “poster session.” He explained that the standards for acceptance in poster sessions were not very high and that I could probably have no difficulty “posting” my theory which could then be read by conference attendees. It was too late for me to post my paper at the 1982 meeting, but he suggested I  visit it anyhow with a view of submitting something for the 1983 meeting. I took his advice and arranged to attend for a single day to find out what a “poster session” was all about. I picked a day on which several prominent evolutionary biologists would be giving presentations in commemoration of the centennial of Charles Darwin’s death.

An Open Letter to Armand Marie Leroi

Dear Armand,

I’ve recently been persuaded that I should stop identifying you as “Doctor X” and as “Reviewer Number One” of the rejected manuscript. Hence this Open Letter.

This will of necessity include material you may have read in my post-rejection email to the editor of Trends in Ecology and Evolution (TREE) and, perhaps, in prior posts to this site. Sorry, but some duplication cannot be avoided. After all, the prime purpose of an “open” communication is to reach other people, not the nominal addressee.

Parts of this message will be disrespectful. Sorry about that, but you’ve earned it.

Evaluating The Reviewer (Part Three)

In my last post I summarized the difference between me and the reviewer when it came to the question “Can jellyfish get cancer?” In this posting I will explain why that question is critically important, not to cancer researchers or to jellyfish enthusiasts, but to everyone who believes evolutionary theory ought to do what it now fails to accomplish: offer a reasoned mechanistic explanation for ~550 million years of Bilaterian evolution.

In the first paragraph of my peer-reviewed 1983 Letter “Cancer and Evolution: Synthesis” I made crystal clear what this reviewer completely ignores: the nucleus of my theory, its logical core. Here, with emphasis added, are the concluding sentences in that paragraph: 

“Although the precise cellular mechanisms involved in carcinogenesis are not considered here, it is assumed that within a target pre-mitotic cell the following sequence takes place: (a) the mutagen causes a mutational event and (b) oncogenes (Bishop, 1982) initiate transformation to the cancerous state following mitosis. It follows from this sequence that virtually all selected defenses against cancer would have enhanced the ability of the genomes to create organisms in which the genetic program is expressed with great fidelity in all somatic cells.” (1)

Evaluating the Reviewer (Part Two)

In “Cancer and Evolution: Amplification” my 1984 Letter in Journal of Theoretical Biology I make clear my conviction that cancer did not occur in every multicell lineage:

"[Oncogenes have] the potential for killing the organism in whose genetic program they are present, such deaths being initiated by the occurrence of a mutational event in a single somatic cell.  This theory states that oncogenes, thus defined, have been present in every cell of every specimen of every species of the Bilateria that ever existed, and that they have existed nowhere else in nature. " (Emphasis added)

The journal's Reviewer Number One takes a completely different view. As I wrote in my emailed letter to the journal’s editor:

“Reviewer #1 is clearly convinced that cancer can in principle occur in any multicell, that the initiation of the process does not require a specific triggering mechanism. He ignores the work of Varmus and Bishop (which earned a Nobel in 1985) and others in identifying cellular oncogenes, cancer-triggering mechanisms. I have already commented on the problems those discoveries create for conventional evolution theory.”

“Number One also suggests that if only they were examined more closely Cnidarians like jellyfish might exhibit cancer. My contrasting conclusion, inferred from their 500 million years of naked sun-bathing, is that death from carcinogenic UV radiation never threatened the jellyfish lineage. His preference for observational science and his rejection of inferential logic reminds me of the dozy bint I encountered who insisted that a certain 19th Century naturalist erred in concluding that direct observation was not a sufficient means of gaining insights into the history of extant animals.”

To summarize the critical distinction between me and the reviewer as to how the question “Was the jellyfish lineage influenced by cancer selection?” ought to be addressed:

James Graham: Using inferential logic, their ~500 million year history of unshielded exposure to carcinogenic UV radiation is sufficient to conclude that their evolution was unaffected by cancer.

Reviewer Number One: Ignore evolutionary history and do not use inferential logic. Simply observe enough extant jellyfish specimens long enough and cancer might be detected.

I have read enough of the writings of professionals in the biological sciences to know that many are convinced that there is only one scientific method; they seldom employ inferential logic and rely solely on laboratory investigation or direct observation in nature. But why would a scientist holding such narrow views undertake review of a paper submitted to a journal devoted to the historical science of evolution, a paper written by someone whose peer-reviewed published theory is the result of the same methodology he employs in the submitted manuscript?