How metastases arise, part 2
30 June 2023
We are not winning the war on cancer because we are clinging to outmoded theories about biology, namely reductionism and gradualism. Instead, we need to focus on complexity theory and self-organized criticality so we better understand how cancer arises and develop treatments based on this understanding.
Reductionism is the theory that the behavior of the whole is equal to the behavior of the sum of the parts. Based on this theory, human biology is composed of combinations of simpler systems that can be reduced to simpler parts; disease is due to flawed parts and treatment merely needs to repair or destroy the damaged parts.
Gradualism is the theory that major changes occur due to the steady accumulation of small changes that produce visible differences, such as the creation of the Grand Canyon by the steady erosion of the Colorado River. Gradualism is logical and was promoted by Darwin, but it does not accurately describe malignant progression or even evolution, which seem to occur through bursts of changes.
In contrast, complex systems have behavior that is difficult to understand due to the relationships between their parts or between a given system and its environment. Complex systems have counterintuitive properties, such as nonlinearity and emergence.
Self-organized criticality is the tendency of complex systems with many components to evolve to a critical state or "tipping point". For example, when dropping individual grains of sand onto a surface, each grain will typically just add to a growing sandpile. Occasionally, it triggers a small avalanche of the sandpile. When the sandpile is at its tipping point, dropping an unremarkable grain of sand will cause the entire sandpile to collapse.
Based on these concepts, we have developed a series of short essays on how cancer metastases arise.
Part 1 discussed the basics of metastatic disease.
Part 2, just published, discusses features of normal human biology that are important in understanding cancer and metastases.
Read this new essay here.
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