#219 / Cancer In Plants

I am recommending the article that goes along with this striking photograph. The article, by George Johnson,  is titled, "Cellular 'Cheaters' Give Rise to Cancer." It appeared in the "Science" section of the July 28, 2015 edition of The New York Times. 

The phenomenon of cancer in plants is interesting in its own right. However, I most appreciated the article as analogy and metaphor. The following quotations will trace the argument I found most instructive: 

• As the primordial cells mutated and evolved...they cooperated, sharing resources and responsibilities and so giving rise to multicellular creatures — plants, animals and eventually us ...

• Each of these collectives is held together by a delicate web of biological compromises. By surrendering some of its autonomy, each cell prospers with the whole ...

• Inevitably, there are cheaters: A cell breaks loose from the interlocking constraints and begins selfishly multiplying and expanding its territory. And so cancer begins ... 

• In a healthy organism, a cell replicates only as frequently as needed to maintain the population and allow for modest growth. Cancer cells begin reproducing wildly, consuming more than their share of resources and spewing poisons that degrade the environment and reshape it to their own advantage ...

• In the long run of evolution, the trade-offs between cellular freedom and communalism have frequently paid off. Multicellularity, imperfect as it must be, can be so advantageous that it has evolved independently a number of times during the history of the biosphere ...

• Yet here too, some research suggests, cooperation can give rise to cheating. Taking advantage of the sustenance and shelter provided by the biofilm, some bacteria will squander resources and thrive at the expense of the others — a microscopic tragedy of the commons ...

• Through a complex chemical dance, cancer cells can even beguile healthy cells into doing their bidding, acting in ways that promote the malignancy. It’s a strategy all too familiar in life: cooperate just enough to gain your competitors’ trust and then betray them for your own advantage ...

• In the end, there are no winners. The cancer destroys its own ecosystem and dies with its host.

This is just the common story of the "we" versus the "me," the way I see it. Translate the lesson into our political and social sphere, and the truth becomes obvious: Any economic, political, or social system that elevates the "me" over the "we," and that thinks that the world is best created by "individualistic," as opposed to "collective" efforts, will lead to the same bottom line that Johnson's article derives: 

The individual destroys the collective, and "dies with its host."

So, let's start acting as if we were in this thing together.

Because we are!

Image Credit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/science/cellular-cheaters-give-rise-to-cancer.html