When Darwinism Hurts
| June 27, 2007 | Posted by PaV under Intelligent Design |
In this latest post at PhysOrg, it seems that Darwinism hasn’t helped, but instead hindered the fight against cancer.
Dr. Peter Duesberg, a molecular biologist at Berkeley,
proposed in 2000 that the assumption underlying most cancer research today is wrong. That assumption, that cancer results from a handful of genetic mutations that drive a cell into uncontrolled growth, has failed to explain many aspects of cancer, he said, and has led researchers down the wrong path.
And, in words that support Behe’s main thesis in “The Edge of Evolution”, Deusberg also adds:
“In this new study and in one published in 2005, we have proved that only chromosomal rearrangements, rather than mutations, can explain the high rates and wide ranges of drug resistance in cancer cells.”
Think of the number of people who die each year of cancer as compared to the number who die from bacterial infection, and one can easily see that all the chest-slapping by the Darwinists about how RM+NS has given us anti-bacterial drugs can know pound their breasts in remorse at the “wrong path” mutational theory has led cancer researchers. This isn’t just a battle between the God-denying and the God-affirming segments of our global society, it’s about good science versus bad science, about reason versus myth.
In a paper responding to Duesberg’s in the same issue of Drug Resistance Updates, Tito Fojo of the National Cancer Institute argues that there are many ways in which the mutation theory of cancer can explain drug resistance. A gene mutation, deletion, translocation or amplification could disrupt many cell functions, leading to resistance, or could inactivate or damage the doors through which a drug enters a cell.
Duesberg counters that aneuploidy is simpler and can explain the common development of resistance to many unrelated drugs within the same cancer. He has shown in experiments that aneuploidy causes many gene disruptions such as breakage or translocation each time a cancer cell divides, providing an opportunity for it to develop resistance to many drugs. Gene mutation rates in cancer cells, however, are no different from mutation rates in normal cells, making it difficult to understand how several simultaneous mutations can occur in cancer to make them resistant to more than one drug.
“The fundamental problem these conventional theories don’t address is why it (drug resistance) doesn’t happen in normal cells,” he said. “Why aren’t we all getting resistant to any toxic drug we are exposed to? Why does it happen only in cancer cells? Why do cancer cells become resistant and the patients don’t?”
Darwinism is like an addiction. You just can’t seem to be able to give the stuff up!
32 Responses to When Darwinism Hurts
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Duesberg’s views on HIV/AIDS may seem strange, but he is a virologist. His main point is that if anyone is infected with a virus they should get sick immediately—that’s what viruses do: they make people sick, and right away. And, if you have a ‘particular’ virus, a doctor ought to be able to tell you what disease you’re going to develop; but that isn’t the case with HIV/AIDS. A doctor would be forced to tell you that might end up with Haposi’s sarcoma, or pneumonia, or any number of six or seven kinds of diseases.
One has to admit that this is a strange virus. Magic Johnson was diagnosed with HIV back in 1992, cutting short his career. He seems perfectly fine when I see him commenting on NBA games 15 years later. That’s some kind of virus.
Here’s something that was written in in support of an article by Duesberg written in 1990. It’s quite interesting:
“The poor quality of scientific thinking leads to shabby behavior in the conference halls and journals. A theory that is poorly grounded has to defend itself form it critics on the basis of sneer and insult, for it has no honorable weapons of debate.
Now, having failed to rise to the challenge to their theory by scientists such as Duesberg in the scientific papers, defenders of the HIV theory complain that criticisms of it has been made available to the public. This will, we are told, undermine confidence in public health measures designed to protect the general population.”
Judge Jones wouldn’t agree more with the last sentence.
Let’s even take the more moderate view that HIV may be a co-factor cause to AIDS, that implies we are failing to recognize the other equally important co-factors and thus unable to treat the disease.
In such case, I would hope a degree of skepticism would be in order.
Regarding the Original Point by Pav, let me add, I can’t see a single case where the neo-Darwinian view has added to medical knowledge any more than what an ID view would have done. There are examples of it being hurtful.