Cancer: The Evolutionary Legacy

Mel Greaves

Oxford University Press, £19.99, pp 272

ISBN 0 19 262835 6

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Have you ever wondered about the lottery of cancer? I do not mean the much discussed variation in availability of treatment, but rather the random way in which carcinoma picks its casualties. While some of my patients have had an explanatory history of excessive smoking or an occupational exposure to a noxious substance, many of those struck down by this modern scourge seem to have been “chosen” indiscriminately.

As a disciple of Darwinian medicine, Greaves's day job as professor of cell …