Don't talk bollocks, cancer isn't 'man made' and did exist in the ancient world

Every now and then when I'm looking for something to write about I come across or I'm sent something so spectacularly stupid that really a new word needs to be invented to describe it, and this article on a study published in Nature Review: Cancer is no exception. I am fairly certain that just by reading it a portion of my intelligence was sucked away, So thanks to my brother David and his friend Clare for making me stupiderer.


Now, in the interests of trying to be fair to the academics that wrote the study in question I'll add the disclaimer that this might just be an example of the usual crappy job that science reporting generally does, the media likes to take a small study with conservative conclusions and turn it into sensationalism along the lines of "Elvis lives with Lord Lucan and Satan in the Sun, study says". However, if the quotes are accurate, it looks like the actual authors of the study are indeed clueless buffoons as well.

It starts with the headline:

Cancer caused by modern man as it was virtually non-existent in ancient world

Boy that's dumb.

Self contradictory as well. Never mind not being entirely accurate as a summation of the study. Here's why: If cancer was caused by modern man then it MUST, by definition, have been completely non-existent in the ancient world, not virtually non-existent. If it was virtually non-existent then that means it was just a little bit existent in the ancient world. Which means modern man can't have caused it, because he's modern and the ancient world is, well, ancient. You know, ancient as in "not modern". Either cancer was caused by modern man and therefore didn't exist at all in the ancient world, or cancer did exist in the ancient world and therefore modern man can not have caused it.

So this article jumps right in with the ridiculously stupid right from the get go. Moving on:

Researchers looking at almost a thousand mummies from ancient Egypt and South America found only a handful suffered from cancer when now it accounts for nearly one in three deaths.


The findings suggest that it is modern lifestyles and pollution levels caused by industry that are the main cause of the disease and that it is not a naturally occurring condition.

Again, the first paragraph contradicts the headline - the researchers are said to have found cancer in ancient mummies that they studied. Therefore modern man didn't, couldn't have, caused cancer. If any cancer at all, no matter how rare, existed in ancient people then cancer cannot have been caused by modern man. It's really that simple.

The second paragraph is just shitty science reporting - the study does not suggest that it is modern lifestyles and pollution that are the main causes of the disease, it suggests that cancer was rare in the ancient mummies studied by the researchers who wrote the report. Any other conclusion is not supported by the study and is merely conjecture. Secondly, the report does not suggest that cancer is not a naturally occurring condition. Again, it suggests that cancer was rare amongst the mummies studied. Hardly the same thing. Both of the conclusions outlined in that paragraph are unsupported by the study. The second one is demonstrably false, as we'll see.

The study showed the disease rate has risen dramatically since the Industrial Revolution, in particular childhood cancer – proving that the rise is not simply due to people living longer.

Really, we need to invent a new word to describe this kind of absolute stupidity. Yes cancer rates have risen dramatically. I wonder why that might be? Could it be that cancer is man made and caused by the rapid industrialisation of the modern world? Or, and I am going to go out on a limb here, could it be that most cancers have only been correctly recognised and diagnosed since the start of the Industrial Revolution? If it wasn't recognised as cancer before then, and then it was, what do you think might happen to the rates of cancer? You know, Transformers weren't a very popular toy before they were invented, then they were invented and sales of them just went through the roof. Crazy.

Cancer didn't exist as a medical diagnosis until it was correctly identified and given its own name - what came to be diagnosed as the 200 or so different types of cancer used to be called something else or were lumped in with other illnesses. Once cancers started to receive their own names, lo and behold cancer rates increased dramatically. What a surprise. Where is the evidence that the rise in cancer rates is connected to industrialisation and not the increased awareness of cancer and its subsequent increased diagnosis by the medical profession? You know, improved sanitation and improved lifespans go hand in hand with industrialisation, you could just as easily claim that cleaner water is linked to a rise in cancer rates from the 'evidence' given in this study.

And what of the claim about the increase in childhood cancers? Well, as Dr Steven Novella points out, childhood cancers are often blood born, like leukemia, which first of all means evidence of them in mummies and fossilised remains doesn't exist. And then, when was leukemia first diagnosed? 1845. I bet leukemia rates just went through the ceiling after 1845. Before 1845, a 0 rate of leukemia, afterwards increasing rates of leukemia. What a surprise. Edgar Allen Poe first published "The Raven" in 1845. Coincidence? You be the judge. But by the standards of evidence this study and article seem to require, the two could easily be linked.

Now it is hoped that it could lead to better understanding of the origins of cancer and to new treatments for the disease which claims more than 150,000 lives a year in the UK alone.

Not if the better understanding consists of "Look, this thing happened and then this did, so the two must be linked." I got up this morning and the sun rose as well - I therefore cause the sun to rise. That is the standard of evidence and reasoning on display in this article and study.

“In industrialised societies, cancer is second only to cardiovascular disease as a cause of death," said Professor Rosalie David, a biomedical Egyptologist at the University of Manchester.


"But in ancient times, it was extremely rare. There is nothing in the natural environment that can cause cancer. So it has to be a man-made disease, down to pollution and changes to our diet and lifestyle.

"Cancer appears to be a modern disease created by modern life."

 
OK. Finally we get to something that is initially correct, cancer is indeed second only to cardiovascular diseases, at least in the USA. Nothing controversial there.
 
Professor David is one of the authors of the study. She appears to also be almost completely full of shit, as we'll see. David says, "But in ancient times, it [cancer] was extremely rare." No, in the small sample size of mummies that you studied it was rare. This conclusion is extremely unscientific given the small sample size and questionable methodology of the study. But that isn't the worst, then comes this truly breathtakingly, monumentally, spectacular piece of gargantuan stupidity; "There is nothing in the natural environment that can cause cancer."
 
Just rereading that kills brain cells. It also confirms my opinion of Egyptologists, biomedical or not.
 
Tell me Professor David, what causes skin cancer? Is the Sun not natural? And what about HPV? Is that not natural? What about one of the common causes of stomach cancer? Is Helicobacter pylori not natural? How about the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, which are responsible for some cases of breast and ovarian cancer? Inherited genes aren't natural? Tobacco causes cancer doesn't it? I do believe that is a natural product, isn't it? How about aflatoxin? A fungus that grows on peanuts and also happens to be a carcinogen is not in the natural environment? There is really nothing in the natural environment that can cause cancer? Even despite the fact that we do indeed know of things in our natural environment that cause cancer - saying there is nothing in the natural environment that can cause cancer is a wholly unscientific statement since we do not know all of the possible causes of cancer. The statement is personal opinion and is not supported either by her study or any other scientific study - in fact the evidence is overwhelmingly against Prof David. Just finding one natural cause of cancer proves her wrong and breathtakingly ignorant, I found several with just a few minutes on Google. Hell, one thing I read says even celery contains carcinogens! And it doesn't get better.
 
She then says; "So it has to be a man-made disease, down to pollution and changes to our diet and lifestyle." This claim is not supported at all by her study - again, it is a personal opinion presented as fact. There is no evidence in her study to support this conclusion as far as I can tell (I can only view the abstract, not the full article). This statement just follows from the previous one - both are demonstrably false. Cancer is clearly not a man made disease and it is not entirely down to pollution, diet or lifestyle. And then she compounds it all with an even stupider statement.
 
David says "Cancer appears to be a modern disease created by modern life." Really? Because I thought your study did find cases of cancer in ancient people. Which is it? Cancer is modern and man made due to industrialisation, or cancer did occur in ancient people before industrialisation? Here's a history of cancer. Note that the Edwin Smith Papyrus dates to 1600BCE (or between 3000-2500BCE depending on who you read) and describes 8 cases of tumour or ulcers of the breast, reported to have no cure. Sounds ancient and cancerous to me. Hippocrates is said to be the originator of the word cancer since he used the words carcinos and carcinoma to describe tumours. Galen, a Roman physician used the word oncos to describe tumours. And what, by an incredible coincidence, do we call cancer specialists? Oh yes, that's right, Oncologists. No sir, no evidence of cancer in ancient times. It is wholly modern and man made, a product of modern life and modern life only.
 
For a professor, David is an idiot who appears to be straying a long way out of her field to spout what appear to be personal opinions as scientific facts. I suppose these quotes could have been taken completely out of context, but it is hard to see how.
 

To trace the origins of cancer, Prof David and colleague Professor Michael Zimmerman, looked for evidence of the disease in hundreds of mummified bodies dating back up to 3,000 years and also in fossils and ancient medical texts.


Despite tried and tested techniques of viewing rehydrated tissue under the microscope they found that only five cases of tumours, most of which were benign.

 
How many mummies, exactly? Small sample sizes do not support the conclusions they are making. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And only five cases despite scouring remains and texts - did they not read the Edwin Smith papyrus? And how do you tell if a tumour is benign from an ancient medical textbook?
 

Fossil evidence of cancer is also sparse, with scientific literature providing a few dozen, mostly disputed, examples in animal and Neanderthal bones, the study in journal Nature Reviews Cancer reports.

 
And now we're using Creationist arguments? Yes, I'll bet the fossil evidence is sparse - that's because fucking fossils are sparse AND cancers do not all affect bones - a great many cancers affect soft tissue, which doesn't fucking fossilize you genius. [CORRECTION 10/17/2010: In the interests of accuracy I'll amend this, soft tissue does, on extremely rare occassions, fossilize. So, in some rare circumstances of an already rare occurrence some soft tissue might be fossilzed. Pays to have a geologist in the family.] How much evidence of pancreatic, ovarian, cervical or stomach cancer do you think you'll find in a fucking fragment of a fossilised skull bone?
 

Quite.
 

They did find examples of other modern day aged related diseases such as hardening of the arteries and arthritis, which they said dismissed the argument that ancient humans did not live long enough to develop cancer.


The mummified bodies from both rich and poor backgrounds showed that the average life expectancy ranged from 25 to 50, depending on their background.

And the assault on my brain cells continues. What percentage of the mummies studied lived to be 50? Since when can anything below the age of 25 be considered old other than in ancient history? More tellingly though, shall we look at statistics about the probability of developing cancer amongst certain age groups? What do you think we are going to find? Well, in the USA between 2004 and 2006 your chances of developing cancer were 1 in 70 between the ages of birth and 39. Then 1 in 12 from the ages of 40 to 59. Then 1 in 6 between 60 and 69. Then 1 in 3 from age 70 onwards. And what is the average lifespan now in the USA? Why in 2008 it was 78.4 years. Significantly longer than the mummies studied. Do you see a problem with their data yet? Why, you are significantly more likely to develop cancer AFTER the age of 50. And what was the oldest age studied - 50. How many of the studied remains fell even close to the age of 50 - enough to make the chance of finding a cancer likely - or does the tiny sample size basically invalidate the results, and especially the conclusions being drawn? What percentage of the studied remains fell in the age range birth to 39, when you are very unlikely to develop cancer?

Sorry, there is nothing about this study that means they can dismiss the argument that their studied remains were old enough to be likely to have developed cancer. In fact, the age argument basically proves this study and its trumpeted conclusions are complete arse.

Evidence of cancer in ancient Egyptian texts is also "tenuous", the researchers claimed, with cancer-like problems more likely to have been caused by leprosy or even varicose veins.

Unlike their evidence for cancer being man made and modern, which is oppressive with its magnitude. Oh wait... They cannot prove that what is described as cancer was not cancer though, can they? They are just stating their opinion as fact, aren't they? This is an opinion based on their study - it is also circular reasoning. They conclude that these cases must have been something other than cancer because they have concluded that cancer did not really exist in ancient times, and they conclude this because they say there is no evidence of cancer in ancient times, and they say this because the evidence of cancer is not of cancer but something else... And round and round we go. Their conclusion is part of their premise.

The only diagnosis of cancer was a case in an unnamed mummy, an "ordinary" person who had lived around 200AD.

So cancer did exist before the modern world, and therefore isn't modern and man made. And therefore this one thing contradicts your entire conclusion.

Modern records show that the disease rate has risen massively since the Industrial Revolution, in particular childhood cancer.

Yes, we know. The problem is what these chumps conclude has caused it. They ignore the simple fact that the field of medical diagnosis, science and treatment has expanded vastly in the same period, as has the population and lifespans. They have somehow ignored everything else that has occurred in the same time period and put it all down to diet, lifestyle and pollution - based on their incredibly small and inconclusive study.

It is poor science and nothing less.

And now it is the turn of the second author of the study to put his foot in it. Professor Zimmerman says:

“In an ancient society lacking surgical intervention, evidence of cancer should remain in all cases.


"The virtual absence of malignancies in mummies must be interpreted as indicating their rarity in antiquity, indicating that cancer causing factors are limited to societies affected by modern industrialisation.”

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

What reason does he have to say their should be evidence in all cases? What kind of evidence? What if the cancer was blood born? Why should there be evidence of a soft tissue cancer in bone fragments or fossils? What evidence is there that tumours would have remained, and remained identifiable in all cases? Why does he discount the evidence that tumours may have been removed or operated on because we know there were primitive surgical interventions? The second statement is breathtaking arrogance not supported in any way by the science of the study, and shows that the authors had already concluded what they wanted to. The absence of malignancies proves nothing since the sample size was small, the age range did not include the age ranges when a person is most likely to develop cancer and there is PLENTY of evidence to show that cancer occurs naturally and DID occur in the ancient world. He is either knowingly lying or he is a shit scientist. We know that cancer can occur naturally and we know it occurred in people before modern industrialisation - his statement is just flat out wrong.

Dr. [sic] Zimmerman dismissed arguments that tumours may have disintegrated over time. His experimental studies indicated that if anything they are better preserved than normal tissues.

I'd like to see the evidence for this, given the tiny sample size and the fact that they already said the tumours they found were benign - what evidence is there that a non-benign tumour would be preserved as well?

As the team moved through the ages, it was not until the 17th century that they found descriptions of breast and other cancers.

Apparently they are enormously selective in their research then, as I've already pointed out. Biased and limited research, tiny sample size, unsupported assumptions, demonstrably false statements. It really isn't looking good for them.

Scrotal cancer in chimney sweeps occurred in 1775, nasal cancer in snuff users in 1761 and Hodgkin’s disease in 1832.

Huh, look at that. Want to bet that cases of these cancers increased after these dates. What a surprise. Let's see: The Second Continental Congress caused scrotal cancer. The issuing of the first life insurance policy in the USA caused nasal cancer and Hodgkin's disease was caused by the formation of the New England Anti-slavery Society.

Back to Professor David making a fool of herself:

Prof David said: “Where there are cases of cancer in ancient Egyptian remains, we are not sure what caused them.


"They did heat their homes with fires, which gave off smoke, and temples burned incense, but sometimes illnesses are just thrown up.”

“Yet again extensive ancient Egyptian data, along with other data from across the millennia, has given modern society a clear message – cancer is man-made and something that we can and should address.”

Does she even think before opening her mouth? “Where there are cases of cancer in ancient Egyptian remains, we are not sure what caused them." How about, the same thing that causes them now? Just a crazy idea. Of course, if you've already formed your conclusion by ignoring all the overwhelming evidence that you are wrong, I am sure cancer appearing in the ancient world is very confusing for you. If you aren't a complete tool however, the evidence that there was cancer in the ancient world is not a problem.

"They did heat their homes with fires, which gave off smoke, and temples burned incense, but sometimes illnesses are just thrown up.” - So cancer in ancient Egypt is just an illness that sometimes gets thrown up, but obviously that doesn't happen in the modern world, where cancer has to be caused by something we do. For fucks sake. Idiot.

“Yet again extensive ancient Egyptian data, along with other data from across the millennia, has given modern society a clear message – cancer is man-made and something that we can and should address.” Bollocks. The data clearly shows the exact opposite of what she is claiming, actually. I can't reiterate this enough - the evidence from everywhere else, apart from their silly study, clearly shows that cancer is NOT a man made disease that has existed only since industrialisation began.

OK. Now we get to the tiny bit of sanity at the end of the article:

Dr Rachel Thompson, of World Cancer Research Fund, said the research was "very interesting".


"About one in three people in the UK will get cancer so it is fairly commonplace in the modern world.

"Scientists now say a healthy diet, regular physical activity and maintaining a healthy weight can prevent about a third of the most common cancers so perhaps our ancestors’ lifestyle reduced their risk from cancer."

Yes - modern lifestyles and pollution and all kinds of other aspects of modern life have increased the risk factors for cancer. Yes, some cancers are the result of modern practises that didn't exist in ancient times (like exposure to asbestos - one of those naturally occurring causes of cancer that don't exist in the natural environment, by the way). However - none of these things mean that cancer is solely the result of modern life or industrialisation and that cancer did not exist in the ancient world. To suggest otherwise is just plain wrong.

David and Zimmerman are wrong.

But Jessica Harris, senior health information officer at Cancer Research UK, said it was wrong to suggest that cancer was purely man-made.


“It can be tempting to worry about our cancer risk from external things like pollution and chemicals more than from things we can control, like our lifestyles," she said.

 
And that's it, that is the only part of the article that offers criticism of David and Zimmerman.
 
Pathetic.
 
To sum up:
 
This study does none of the things claimed for it, offers no real substantive evidence for it's conclusions, and much of what is being said around it is either demonstrably false or just plain old stupid. It is poor science, poor history and poorly represented and reported. David and Zimmerman should be ashamed to call themselves professors and make the claims they are making.
 
And now that I have been overtaken with stupidity I plan on enjoying my day by strapping myself to the wall of a nuclear reactor and having someone fire a Phantom at me. Seems like the smart thing to do.
 
Smarter than this article and study at least.