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Business Insider
6. Genes, cancer and luck
You might have read recently that most cancer is caused by bad luck, as a study published in Science supposedly concluded. (Actually, the study concluded that the disparity in prevalence of cancer of various types was largely due to luck.) A firestorm of protest followed, essentially based on the belief that such a study must be wrong because it would “send the wrong message” to the public. Proving the illogic of that syllogism should be left as an exercise for the reader.
Other responses revealed that experts do not agree on how random mutations (bad luck) compare with heredity (parent’s fault) plus lifestyle (your fault) and environmental exposure to bad things (somebody else’s fault) in causing cancer. Sorting all that out, and in the process solving cancer’s other mysteries, should be a high-priority exercise for 21st century science. And yes, there is a considerable amount of research relating game theory to cancer.
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