Sperm may hold key to cancer, chimp study suggests

Reuters ^ | 5-19-05 | Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

[weegee]

Is this why gay men are so prone to dying of cancer? I thought that was AIDS that made them susceptible.

[null and void]

If only I could convince my wife of this...

Good thing you can't. If she reads the article (which, apparently, you didn't) she'd just want to monkey around...

[trebb]

but why should we assume a Creator when the common descent explanation is a better fit for the evidence and requires the invention of no extraneous entities?

Why is common decent a better fit? We have no proof of Man evolving - there are steps that might appear to be mutations, but there is also the awkward "missing link" which ought to be far easier to find than fossils purported to be millions of years old. The fact is, mutations are just about 100% detrimental and do not result in an enhanced life form. There is also the awkward problem of many cells that are supposed to have evolved being irreducible (lose any part and the cell ceases to exist). If you take a real look at the universe, everything in it depends on something else. If you reduce that to it's final end, there must ultimately be something that is not dependent on anything else that supplied the initial basis for all else - I call that God; you call it an "extraneous entity".

[PatrickHenry]

Have fun with all those startlingly new arguments.

[Atheist_Canadian_Conservative]

"The evolutionary path that separated humans from chimps 5 million years" So this is now a given? No. Creationists evolved via a different route: dirt-->man, and then man's rib ---> woman. And then 1 man + 1 woman---> everyone. The proposed mechanism is....the same thing that holds atoms together, keeps the world flat, and retains the epicyclic rotation of all the planets and stars about the earth.

[DennisR]

"...may have made human sperm survive better but paradoxically may have made humans prone to cancer."

Notice that they couch it in the word "may" - they have absolutely no idea what happened when. But it is all "science," of course.

[Dimensio]

Why is common decent a better fit?

It requires no processes or entities that we've not already observed.

We have no proof of Man evolving

We also have no proof of gravity, yet I don't hear anyone challenging existing explanations becuase they want a religiously-motivated alternative pushed instead.

The fact is, mutations are just about 100% detrimental and do not result in an enhanced life form.

Please support this statement with evidence rather than just blithely asserting something that runs counter to what any trained biologist will say.

There is also the awkward problem of many cells that are supposed to have evolved being irreducible (lose any part and the cell ceases to exist).

Irreducible complexity has been debunked at multiple levels.

If you reduce that to it's final end, there must ultimately be something that is not dependent on anything else that supplied the initial basis for all else - I call that God; you call it an "extraneous entity".

Why do you insist that such a thing "must" exist? Moreover, why do you call it "God", what properties do you assume it to have and why do you assume these properties? Finally, why do you assert that it is more rational and reasonable to assert some extra entity that you call "God" as an explanation when we have observed mechanisms -- your abysmal ignorance of them notwithstanding -- that provide a much simpler explanation. We have no observations for this "God", nor do we have any predictable, consistent observations for an effect that this "God" has, so why invent it when it's unnecessary?

[Pharmboy]

The evolutionary implications of type 2 diabetes (adult onset) are particularly interesting. It has been theorized that a "thrifty gene" makeup, that is, one that makes people's metabolism very efficient at storing calories developed during our prolonged hunter-gathering stage.

This allowed our ancestors to survive during times when food was scarce; now, when we live in times of superabundance, those with a heavy dose of those thrifty genes stores fat quite well which leads to the signs and symptoms od diabetes.

[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.

[festus]

So do they make the new guy go around and collect the chimpanzee sperm ?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Pharmboy]

"I have to do what?!??"

LOL!

[trebb]

We also have no proof of gravity, yet I don't hear anyone challenging existing explanations becuase they want a religiously-motivated alternative pushed instead.

I guess there is no sense in arguing with you - we can measure gravity and even calculate orbit speed/altitude, using the moon as a slingshot, etc., yet you claim we have no proof of gravity, then go on to claim I "blather".

I guess you will discount any proof or idea simply because you are anti-religious and it doesn't suit your paradigm.

God Bless (yes, He does exist).

[Dimensio]

I guess there is no sense in arguing with you - we can measure gravity and even calculate orbit speed/altitude, using the moon as a slingshot, etc., yet you claim we have no proof of gravity, then go on to claim I "blather".

No, we don't have proof of gravity. We have strong evidence for our current theories on gravity, but we cannot authoritatively state that we are 100% certain that we know what causes gravitational force.

The nature of science is that nothing is "proven". It's all just explanations resting upon existing observations that could potentially be overturned with any new discovery. We might tomorrow discover that our existing theories on why objects appear to attract one another with force proportional to their mass and distances is completely wrong.

I guess you will discount any proof or idea simply because you are anti-religious and it doesn't suit your paradigm.

What an overused cop-out from those with no evidence to back up their position. Claim that I'm just closed-minded, and use that claim to justify not bothering to pony up evidence for your unscientific claims.

God Bless (yes, He does exist).

To which God, out of the thousands (if not more) of deity-constructs acknowledged and worshipped throughout human history, do you refer and why should I believe your claims over all others?

[trebb]

No, we don't have proof of gravity. We have strong evidence for our current theories on gravity, but we cannot authoritatively state that we are 100% certain that we know what causes gravitational force.

We have an effect that we call gravity and it's measurable. If you don't think that's proof of it, then you must believe in something else that acts like gravity - God maybe?

[Dimensio]

We have an effect that we call gravity and it's measurable. If you don't think that's proof of it, then you must believe in something else that acts like gravity

I'm referring to the cause of the 'effect' that we measure. If you think that we have proof for that cause, then you are woefully ignorance of science and how it works.

[trebb]

I'm referring to the cause of the 'effect' that we measure. If you think that we have proof for that cause, then you are woefully ignorance of science and how it works.

Then we really know absolutely nothing for sure - cause and effect can only be studied in specific instances and it all has to have a root in the beginning - without knowing what caused the beginning, we have no basis for understanding what seems to exist now.

It's obvious we won't convince each other, so I'm done with this thread.

[FredZarguna]

This is proof!

It is all MEN's fault!

Actually, no. It's quite possible that female chimps are more discriminating in their selection of mates, preferring less toxic ones than human females do.

Just a theory; my own wife is an exception, of course.