The evolutionary biology of death and human malignancy - 19 Downloads
The evolutionary biology of death and human malignancy
David A. Rew
Introduction
Surgical oncology is the application of craft, knowledge, science and technology to the delay of death through the prevention and treatment of malignant disease. Human intervention can only postpone the inevitability of death. The dynamic of life obliges nature to discard everything that it creates. We may never resolve the meaning of life for individual men and women in secular terms, but we can resolve the meaning of death for the individual in the context of reproduction, of ageing and of cancer. It is difficult to explore a biological function for death and the role which cancer plays in it without encroaching on the metaphysical, and there is little published literature to turn to for guidance.
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