Cancer

Three Kinds of Cooperation

Ecologists speak about two types of cooperation — mutualism and commensalism — which distinguish whether both or just one of a pair is benefiting. I’d like to look at a different dimension of cooperation that has to do with communication. There are at least three different types of cooperation along this dimension, though perhaps you can distinguish more (if so, please post a comment!)…

Can we cure cancer?

In my previous post I paraphrased my understanding of why the cancer workshop was called as the premise: “cancer is an evolutionary process; the cure for cancer is within reach, and is mostly an engineering problem now that we have the right model; and what can we do collectively to work towards and achieve the goal of a cure”. Here’s the current scorecard in my mind:…

Prelude

The last two days I attended a conference that I was attracted to because the organizers and I have been conversing lately on a subject of interest, namely the idea that “cancer is an evolutionary process; the cure for cancer is within reach, and is mostly an engineering problem now that we have the right model; and what can we do collectively to work towards and achieve the goal of a cure”. Based on my previous thinking on and study of complex adaptive systems plus a treatise that the organizer wrote, I already believed that it was obviously true that “cancer is an evolutionary process”, I was predisposed to believe the premise “the cure for cancer is within reach”, I was open to the question of whether it is “mostly an engineering problem”, and was hopeful about the possibility of working collectively with others on that problem. What I came out with was quite a bit more than I bargained for, not the least of …