You Don't Know What Cancer Is
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ก.ย. 2024
- I've been trying to work on this for a long time now. Like, of course this is all kinda metaphor, and I've been told that "cancer is you" but...it's not really.
I mean, I don't know what /I/ am...but it's basically a bunch of cells that work together to further the agenda of getting their shared genes to the next generation of human. But cancer is not that, it's acting as a single-celled organism...it just happens to have my genes.
Very Very weird.
The metaphor of cancer as the "selfish ant" works really well, and I feel is a good way to explain it to others.
but the worker ant needs a queen to reproduce...
@@HexerPsySo to does the new "cancer" organism. It is eventually going to kill itself but crucially in Hank's example, he's already had some reproductive success which explains while cancer can still be so prevalent in humanity whereas other mammals have adaptations to prevent it (clearly cancer was more harmful to reproductive success of their genes).
@@HexerPsy In the ant metaphor, the worker mutated the ability to lay its own eggs.
@@x--. No the cancer risk is decided by the size of the animal and the age of the animal, and its reproductive window.
A whale for example, with its long life span and massive size has many copies of its repair mechanisms in its DNA.
Compare that to a mouse, cat or dog, they lead long lives under human car and will frequently get cancer, compared to their wild counter parts. And the whale lives a lot longer still in the wild.
It takes energy to correct DNA in the copying process, so there is a differing selection pressure for the long vs short lived species.
I work in the radiotherapy, so we do a number of children pass by with cancer. Sometimes its just bad luck, often there are mutations involved. So in humans too there is a mild selection pressure against certain cancers. Consider too that treatment can lead to infertility, and 'removes one form the gene pool'.
@@HexerPsy Everything you said in this response seems correct to me so I'm a little confused. Do we disagree? Maybe the analogy has gone off the rails?
I have Hodgkin Lymphoma (second chemo session Tuesday) and this video helped me so much, especially why if I relapse later, it will be worse and can't just do more ABVD, it's because those individual cells that survived all 6 cycles are the strong bois and then they got the chance to reproduce and they need to be hit harder. Thank you Hank for this and everything else you've made! I feel much more informed about my treatment and cancer every time 💞
Wishin you the best offense in your fight to commit genocide against this new species of parasite within you
I had Hodgkins Lymphoma a couple years ago. I was in remission after 3 cycles of chemo and this month is my two year anniversary of being in remission. You've got this!!
I hope you get to be in remission too and I’m glad that you have this resource! Stay strong ❤️
Hi, I hope you are holding up all right :) If ever you want a goodie box i could send you something. Hugs
Stay strong keep fighting!!!
I’m so glad hank is In remission, we’ve lost too many great people to cancer. I’m glad we didn’t lose him as well.
I’m happy to hear that people who have had no effect on my life whatsoever have defeated their cancer, let alone somebody like Hank whose work has impacted me in unknowable ways over so many years!
I can’t say I was particularly worried for Hank after all the effort he’s gone through to educate us on his cancer journey, but hearing that he’s in remission still made me feel incredibly happy, as comparatively curable as his cancer was.
Yet... 🤞
You better go knock on wood, right fucking now
We've lost too many people* to cancer.
Cancer is always a tragedy. Bad people still have value.
Like Hank explained in a previous video, you're never the same post cancer treatment.
I hope he won't die any younger because of the chemo and radiation and the cancer itself and all the other things connected to all of those factors.
But to say we didn't lose him sorta implies he won the war, when he only really won the first set of battles...
Hank: *rambles and explains things very well for 20 minutes*
Me: I am an anthill.
Underneath this explaining (which is excellent, as always), I hear Hank wrestling with deeper feelings and deeper questioning. That’s what I sense, at least. Which makes total sense. Processing within while explaining outwards. We love you, Hank.
(Written 3 minutes in as a reaction to tone - guess I’ll see where he goes!)
He is on a journey of meaning after all...
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Love this, love Hank sharing his thoughts.
Cancer is like if one ant decided to be like, "Well, what if I was queen?" and started to disrupt the colony.
I think that having consumed content from you and John for the majority of my life has fundamentally made it easier for me to comprehend this stuff, but I think that it's really helpful. I like the eusocial insect analogy because it allows you scale up and down more easily. Thanks Hank! Always fun to see how you think.
I find your continuation of Hank's metaphor very helpful!
Sounds like society has cancer
I think it's more like a Joker Cell (problematic, unregulated) going, "I'll make everyone like me" and caos ensues. When you learn the lengths some cancerous cells will go to migrate to other parts of the body (metastasis) they really do seem like the most evil supervillains.
Kinda like a billionaire in our society…
This was really informative for me. Personally, when you mentioned how your son has your genetics, but not your cells, that helped me to make the conceptual shift about natural selection. Also, saying, “You are extincting a species of single celled organisms that shares your DNA but is acting on its own behalf” helped with my full understanding of cancer. Thank you so much for sharing 💚
The "evil" of these cells is in greed, selfishness, and deceit. Food for thought.
@@GothAlicePerhaps we could fight the metaphorical cancers in society by looking at how we fight literal cancer.
Upvote!
Legos. Each Lego is a cell. Each prong on the Lego is a gene. Legos make “insert structure”. Would make for easy imagery. Good luck!
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"Ants are wasps that learned how to work together" is a terrifying take. Thank you Hank.
Wait, but wasps can have big nests. Now I need a wasp SciShow tangents!
@@mariannetfinchesGuinness says up to 12 feet long! I think a lot of wasp species don't work as a collective.
Ants are wasps that achieved a state of perfect communism.
It's because you're mainly thinking of hornets and paper wasps. There are actually a zillion species of wasps out there, some almost microscopic in scale, and most of which won't hurt you.
It has long been thought that _coleoptera_ (beetles) are the most diverse group of animals out there, but recently there's been serious argument that _hymenoptera_ (ants, bees, and wasps) actually comprise _more_ species than _coleoptera._ Obviously no one knows the grand total of either family, and the concept of a species is nebulous and arbitrary anyway, but there you go.
@@mariannetfinches He immediately followed the statement with "wasps that learned how to work together BETTER"
I love this rant type explanation, it’s much more like a natural train of thought, and I love watching him just talk and think
Yeah, I'm glad this kind of video didn't end up getting cut out.
Yes. We actually watched Hank learn and organize his own thoughts.
Cancer. Hank style.
It's a helpful representation of processing information out loud. I don't always need feedback to figure something out. But I often need to talk about it out loud to another person, allowing my brain to figure it out.
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Yup, no need to prep Hank.
Your videos about cancer are comforting.. My mother has cervical cancer that has spread, some actually rotted in her body.
I made her a painting before she goes to the hospital tommorow, with a message on the back. I hope she likes it.
I'm glad hank's videos are helpful and sending all the best wishes to your mother for her treatement
@@HelenRosemarySmith Thank you. It means a lot.
Wish you and your mother the best, stay strong, my friend. I don’t pray but I’ll be doing the atheist version of that for both of you ❤
@@TheSecondBeef And as an agnostic pagan, I thank you for it. She has started Chemotherapy again 🥹❤️
Aw, a painting is sweet. Hoping your mother makes it
I've been watching you since I was 18 years old, and you guys inspired me to start my own TH-cam channel at that age. I'm now turning 32, and I'm still making videos haha. Congratulations on being in remission, Hank. I am happy to keep hearing you talk all these years.
Well start at 10:00 ish he babbles for a while
vlogbrothers inspired me too!! i was probably 10 when i found them. I am 23 now. crazy how time flies.
@@ashleelarsen5002bit of an asshole-ish comment
I am studying medicine, and spend a fair amount of time at the hospital, and I get to bear witness to people having the best and worst days of their life. And I really get frustrated at the weakness in the 'battling cancer' metaphors, or people 'being brave ' because there are a whole range of experiences that are not accurately depicted.
Cancer has this mythology and this stigma and fear associated with it, and I really appreciate you trying to find a way to explain what cancer is, partially because I will be stealing the odd metaphor to help me explain to patients what is happening and to try and demystify the experience as much as possible.
Cancer sucks, but I am so impressed at how you are using this really shitty experience, to try and make it into a way to educate people.
If you haven’t I highly recommend reading Emperor of all Maladies which I believe is partly about how the stigma/idea of cancer being different comes from.
@@emmakane6848indeed, excellent book. There is so much potential for people to overrepresent their own perspective in that kind of book, but he really seems to have found a way to show what he was thinking at important moments during his career while not being afraid to also point out that there were times when a conversation with a patient would make him reevaluate how he looked at the situation.
It was wonderful to hear you talk it through, and you had a great ant-colony analogy! My cancer (a 5" diameter stage 2C ovarian granulosa cell cancer) was "avid enhancing" (liked sugar), had its own blood supply network, and produced inhibin B hormone. I'm now 17 months post-sugery (TAH-BSO) and 12 months post-chemo with no recurrence. I'm so happy to see you doing well! ❤
Congratulations! I hope things keep going well!
I like that you list all the characteristics of the cancer you had. It encourages others to ask” what do I know about my disease?”
Being informed can help people find the best treatment.
Hank, I do have really bad health anxiety and this has helped me a lot. I’m very glad I get to share the time I’m on this planet with you also.
"I am very glad I get to share the time I'm on this planet with you"
Hold on I'm tearing up this is a beautiful comment
I like to think about the genes being selected for kind of like a popular book--it's not the physical books themselves that are being passed on/reprinted, it's the story inside them.
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this does click! good analogy
This is fantastic!
Yes! And it's that kind of thinking that led to the word "meme" being coined. It's an idea that functions like a gene, being passed on through the population
Take this a step further and say it’s a “choose your own adventure book” with whole chapters titled things like “IMPORTANT RULES READ FIRST” and “IGNORE THESE TUTORIALS.” Cancer is what happens when a cell interprets the book differently from the rest of the class
Have you read the essay/story "The Goddess of Everything Else"? It makes a really nice metaphor between cancer in multicellularity, selfishness in social animals, and conquest in nations
I recently beat Stage 2 grade 3a Non-Hodgkins follicular lymphoma myself! Happy for you Hank!
Glad you beat it! I wish you well
You did a great job too!
Congratulations!
Congrats!!! 🎉🎊
That's amazing!!
I was being diagnosed with both systemic mastocytosis (overgrowth of mast cells) and inflammatory breast cancer at around the same time. Comparing them helped me understand what makes cancer more than just "more cells." Also, the anime Cells At Work has some interesting cancer episodes that explain how it is "selfish" and stops acting in the interest of the organism, including "punching" through organ walls, etc. In mastocytosis, the mast cells are still trying to work together, there's just too many cooks in the kitchen.
Stay strong!!
Thank you, Hank.
I'm 59 now, but I was 16 in 1980 when my 43 year old Dad died of lymphoma.
You have so many people who watch you so that IF cancer affects their lives, at least they'll have a better knowledge of cancer.
Believe me, it'll help.
Because of you and because you LIVED!
Again, thank you, Hank.
I can see how this was difficult to articulate and I think you did a good job. The ant metaphor helped a lot to help me follow you. At any point that someone with a fair amount of science background starts talking about what cells "want" and "think", I'm like, ok we're in deep here lol. Glad to hear you're in remission and wishing you all the best moving forward. (... And selfishly waiting for more Delete This/Wet or Dry because Katherine is my favorite in the Vlogbrothers universe.)
Hank is one of the greatest educators of our time. Not only is he constantly seeking knowledge and sharing it in a fantastic way, he is doing it as he's going through one of the greatest horrors one can go through.
Cancer is a selfish cell instead of a selfish gene. Throughout my education the greatest barrier to understanding both cancer biology and evolution (because they are so intrinsically linked) was anthropomorphizing the processes. It is so hard to look at natural selection and not see a grand plan, or species "making choices" to adapt to their environment. Adjusting the mindset to remove intentions from biology helped with my understanding a lot.
I love the ant analogy, I’ve done quite a lot of research on cancer and I’ve found something else that helps my understanding is looking at what people used to believe cancer was before they really knew about cancer, (The Emperor of All Maladies is a great read on the history of cancer). Maybe in a broader context than what the cells are actually doing, but could expand understanding.
It's a great book but I can't recommend it to loved ones who want to understand cancer but aren't meganerds. Maybe Hank can write something more accessible
@@therabbithat oh absolutely, not an accessible book for those without a background in some kind of biology but as a meganerd i thought others who may want to go deeper into it would like to look into it. It would be great if Hank could make something more accessible, I think this video is an incredible start at that.
The youtube channel kurgesaght (probably misspelled) has some really good medical videos about how the immune system works that are a good balance between accessible and scientific accuracy.
There most recent one is a cancer video and the analogy is if a part of a city decided to rebel and ignore the rules. The city services will show up to shut it down (immune system tries to do its job). And only if it survives many rounds of that will it evolve to be good at hiding and finally be capable of being called cancer.
I also like Hank's insight that its fundamentally some of your cells reverting back to single celled strategies and becoming a special sort of infection that mostly shares your DNA. And how the trouble is like with any infection, if you kill 95% the last 5% are going to be the tough ones who build back as a worse problem.
I know you hear this a lot lately, but I have an immense amount of respect for how you've turned this arguably traumatic health crisis into a learning experience for you and for us. I followed what you were saying, and you're right, it's pretty wild to think about.
Thank you for this, Hank. I was treated for cancer last year (no evidence of active disease so far, yay!) and this explanation made me tear up. i'm so grateful to have new perspective on it.
@karink.4942 - I am so glad for you. Please keep with the follow-up appointments and scans, though. Cancer in 2014. 4 years later, I found that I had a metastasis during a follow-up PET/CT. No symptoms, the scans caught it in time. 2 years after that, without any symptoms, another metastasis showed up on a PET/CT in another place. AARRRGGGHHHH! Again, it was quickly treated. I feel like I am playing cancer whack-a-mole. So, do not lapse with your follow-up visits.
A HEART-FELT PLEA - Get those kids vaccinated for HPV! These are cancers that we can eradicate, people.
I'm 3 days away from my 2nd treatment of ABVD and your comedy special "P*ssing out Cancer" helped me laugh and cry and explain things to so many humans in my life. Seeing this video, and watching the inner workings of your brain as you put together the Trent the Ant analogy is amazing.
Thanks for your content and humor and honesty. Its been invaluable for me on my own NSHL journey. 🖖✌️
The way I've understood Genes as the fundamental unit of Natural Selection is that in order to reproduce, you must have the information required to do so.
Genes are the fundamental unit of information in any organism, and if a gene carries information that allows it to be reproduced, then it will be reproduced.
Natural Selection can only act on this level of information because all higher levels of organization are pre-determined by the genes, so even if it "wanted" to act on the cell or organism level, there is no mechanism through which it can.
However, such higher order mechanisms are not impossible.
If one considers Self-Cloning, then Natural Selection might be able to act on the knowledge that the clone has, making it more likely that the clone knows how to clone itself.
This becomes possible only because the Clone has a way to store information in a way that isn't fully determined by its Genes.
Such a lineage of Clones could learn over time, solely through Natural Selection, better ways to produce self-clones which know how to produce self-clones (ad infinitum).
This brings to mind the cancer that dogs can get, which is actually mutated cells from one particular dog that lived thousands of years ago.
It’s as if a cancer figured out to actually perpetuate itself as a separate organism, rather than dying when its host died like every other cancer I’ve ever heard about.
I like how Hank's two props that he had on hand to use were 2 pointy sharp things
You're right that the natural selection analogy is kinda hard to grasp, most people get the general idea but the specifics is what this explanation relies on. I think there's another context most people have direct experience with that might work well...
Let's say your body is a company, The You Company™️! Every organ is its own little department: marketing, customer service, logistics, you get the idea. They all rely on eachother, but there's separate tasks and office spaces for each department. Imagine each cell is one worker at The You Company™️.
Now, if one sneaky lil guy decides "hey, what if I could just not follow the rules" and starts hiring people (mitosis in the workplace is a tough comparison, bear with me) who acts the same way. They start asking for budget increases, busting down walls to spread out their office space, siphoning whatever resources they can to benefit their clique.
The problem arises when they can't be fired. They tell HR that "actually my dad is the CEO of The You Company™️ and he said you can't fire me haha", they hide their guys in one department by sitting in the middle surrounded by healthy workers, they lie to HR when confronted with "these ain't the cells you're looking for" and now they are really starting to make running the company tough.
Building cubicles, hire more of their buddies, give themselves huge bonuses, max out their expense accounts, take over marketing and start printing posters of themselves looking smug. Lots of the money the company's got is being drained into their banks accounts.
Oh no! Now accounting takes a pay cut major enough that they have to quit or survive on whatever crumbs the cancer department hasn't gotten to. Accounting doesn't last long, and there's your department (organ) failure.
The You Company™️ needs to bring out external help to survive: they call... idk the cops..? And they bust down the door and arrest all the sneaky boys they can, but cops aren't very smart, so they just kinda arrest everyone hired recently, cancer or not. If sneaky boys remain in the building once the cops leave, they probably learned how to evade arrest by hiding in a locker or showing off their punisher bumper stickers.
Now they can hire more guys, tell em those tricks, and next time the cops come, they might not be able to catch all the new hires, because half of em have fake ID cards that say they've been there for years.
I'll stop here, but you should get the idea I hope.
Another bit: you could consider a cancer to be a new, parasitic organ/organism thats like... a lil piece of you going rogue and deciding it's gonna do it's own thing, flipping the bird at the rest of you. Pretty rude tbh
I like you, Hank, am a huge D&D nerd. Cancer IMO, in D&D terms, is a Lich. A good wizard gone bad. Someone who got lost in the sauce and got obsessed with immortality and decides to do whatever it takes to survive. Damn the cost or the collateral damage. You can kill a Lich but it comes back unless you kill the phylactory. Cancer has huge Necromancy vibes.
I had testicular cancer diagnosed last September. Had surgery on my birthday 4th of October 2022. Surgery went well and first scan after surgery showed the cancer was gone. My second scan cancer came back and was now in a lymph node in my back. 9 weeks of hell later I got the all clear. Funnily on the same day I got the all clear my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. My 2 scan after getting the all clear is in 2 weeks. Beyond scared but hopefully. Mother is really struggling. Cancer is a fucking dick but pulls out the fighter in us all. Stay strong brother better times ahead 💙 Love from a brother in Ireland trying to kick cancers ass 🇮🇪🤛
I sincerely hope you and your Mother are doing well !
I don't understand the sciencey stuff, but I think in TFIOS it's phrased more like cancer is "made of you", which is similar to "cancer is you", but not quite the same. I'm not sure that's what you're getting at, but sometimes shifting a little bit can help? (also I love hearing the trains of thought that get you to the Fancy Science Thought that we normally hear!)
It needs a little editing, but this was the clearest description of cancer and explanation of how it works that I've ever encountered.
If I understand your ant colony analogy, in a "cancerous colony", one ant would have almost exactly the same genes as the normal ants in the colony, but would have a mutation that allows it to reproduce itself and "convince" the other ants to ignore its bad behavior. The mutated ant's sole function would be to reproduce, so it would have to use the food and environment provided by the normal ants. Over time, the colony would have a greater and greater proportion of these "selfish" ants, and the normal functioning of the colony would be more and more impaired. Eventually so much of the colony would be made up of the mutated ants that it would die, because the mutated ants couldn't fulfill the functions of a colony.
You suggest that that's what human cancer cells do. They have your genes, but with a mutation that allows them to reproduce themselves and to get around the mechanisms that keep individual cells from reproducing "selfishly" and moving away from their assigned places and functions. Eventually the cancer cells take over the body enough so that it cannot function, and it dies. Because the cancer had your genes, it can't spread to another body, so when your body dies, that specific cancer becomes extinct.
Yes?
Thank you for putting out content in this format of conversation-like familiarity! Your cadence and the subject matter and the way it felt, it reminded me so much of my dad who I lost in May this year. We would sit and have discussions and teach each other about subjects and talk through things that we were learning together so we could solidify in our minds and find ways to communicate the info to others who weren’t as attuned to each others wavelength as we were to each other. He would have liked your videos Hank. He loved to think and spent most of the last few years reading every article he could and watching documentaries since he couldn’t work physically anymore.
So sorry for your loss. He sounds like a gem.
As someone who has lived with increased cancer risk my entire life (family history, living in Southeast Kentucky, being alive in the 21st century, smoking for 7 years, drinking for 12, etc), this gives me a little more perspective on what to expect when it finally does hit me. Thank you, Hank, you're the best.
Living in Southeast Kentucky is a good, subtle way to put it.
@@jiffylou98 listen, I’ve had three cousins on both sides of my family all die in the last 3 years from Cancer. It’s the way of life around bere
Love you Hank. I am so proud of you for keeping us updated with you . Also teaching so many of us . Most of all doing it while I’m pain and sacred. As someone who suffers from chronic pain and other ailments. I know it’s so hard to do the everyday and show up for others. Keep kicking ass love ❤❤❤
From the perspective of someone currently going through cancer (from here on out, known as skunk)… This actually really helped me to understands, and honestly, I am glad to hear they cater more to the anxiety then the actual growth of the skunk. The skunk I have is slow growing, but still scary. Like, there is cancer in my body, even if it replicates at 1 yucky smell a year (1 cell a year), I still want it the heck out.. anyways all that to say, the ant analogy totally works… like… its an ant that grew special ar our and special abilities and now it just doesn’t need its own colony anymore, because it can create its own super powered coloney.. i know I’m mixing metaphors.. but i hope thats understandable.. Thanks for your work, its been super helpful.
TierZoo's video on eusocial insects was my first real encounter with the gene as the unit of natural selection. Since bees share more genetic material with their siblings than they do with their parents, their hives very strongly select for behavioral traits that encourage having as many siblings as possible, leading to individual bees being more loyal to the hive than they are to themselves.
This is awesome content. It's like being in the writer's room and knowing Hank is not at his best but it's so important to him to communicate science he has to wing a 20 minute video. This is a bitter bliss, listening to Hank mind dump.
So cancer is a selfish ant! That's a great way to think about it. Glad to hear you are in remission hank! Thanks for a great video ❤
Oh you got it down to a single sentence! Perfect!
Nice!
I always love when you explain a topic better than multiple courses of my bio major did. Thank you!!
This made me understand how cancer works for the first time! The ant analogy was helpful to start and then go deeper into cancer in a human body and the genes driving things
A good friend of mine found out he had cancer ( I believe Hodgkins Lymphoma) not long after hearing about Hank. It was hard for me because like myself he's a father with a baby daughter at home. Listening to Hank explain everything and be so positive has helped me understand and have hope for my friend. He's a great new father and I really hope he's around long enough to see his little girl grow up.
We love you Hank, I loved watching your train of thought on this. Can't wait for you to feel 100% again
I absolutely LOVE this hank talking through his through process...I could listen to fucking HOURS of this... I want more of these...all the time...anytime you're thinking through anything...PLEASE do it like this. This is the hank I never knew I always wanted.
I also love how introspective and grand your thought processes have been since your diagnosis. I know that, it must have been a horrible time, going through the scariness of cancer and the pain and vulnerability of taking us along with so much of that ride... but, I think when we as humans glimpse our mortality and thus our humanity...it makes us think differently not just in how we see the world but how we think about or even talk about the world. our internal and external vocabulary for how we talk about and describe the world and concepts around us...changes. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.
For someone who is already so intelligent and has such a strong vocabulary and ability to think in the abstract...it's having an even more outsized effect and I love it on you. it looks good on you man. I could see you drinkin' some mushroom tea or DMT or Ketamine or something and blowing my mind with what thoughts and ideas came to you from that...
This idea of thinking of your individual cells as ants apart of an ant colony and cancer being one stray ant that ain't going with the plan definitely has some promise. With a little more talking it out I think you'll get there. It's like a comedian when they think of something funny but are trying to figure out how to make it a joke...you got all the pieces you need, i think you just need to figure out how to put the pieces together.
As always, Love ya bro. Looking forward to more for you, esp if they are deep thought vids like this.
I've been watching you and John since your Brotherhood 2.0 era- middle school days for me. I hadn't thought about cancer with this frame of perspective and I'm now, once again, so gratful that you have made me, over nearly 15 years after finding Vlogbrothers, made me consider what makes things do what they do.
I know this isn't what you were going for but the idea came to me that I am a cell in the organism of humanity and it significantly decreased my death anxiety. If my cells are good living on through me, I'm good living on through humanity as a whole.
I hope you create more videos like this. Honestly, I really enjoyed hearing you talk through these ideas.
I think the tricky part is the understanding of what an organism is. There are complicated definitions of what an organism is, but for this conversation I think it's easiest to define an organism as a structure composed of smaller parts. Cells are composed of atoms. Animals are composed of cells. Societies are composed of animals. Each of these is an organism, and successful organisms have a high PROBABILITY of reproduction.
Probability is key, because sometimes a higher organism is more successful when specific individuals composing that organism are less successful. The probability of the high-order organism reproducing is directly dependent on some of the low-order organisms having lower probabilities.
The natural selection of the high-order organism is countering the natural selection of the low-order organisms. Tumors occurs when the natural selection of the low-order organism overcomes the natural selection of the high-order organism. It's a probability spike.
This is how I rant when I'm drunk, and I'm loving every second of it!
Hank, I think this is the best summary (or is this obvious to everyone already, idk):
- The digestive cell, the maybe sacrificial ant, and the selfless human, do what they do, /so other people can be in the same place they are, in the future/
- Like, they recognize they are there, because others in their place were cooperative in the past, did a certain something in the past; and to keep that ball rolling forwards, to be they themselves one element in that organism, and to let others be that in the future; they have to do the correct thing, in their place in that organism
- It's about... doing what is correct, more prior than doing what makes you happy.. or doing what you'd like others in your place to do
- It's about what I've always thought is key: You can be selfless, from selfishness. You want to live in a better society, because that is what makes you personally the happiest. You want to live in a society where say, people don't litter, but you're one of the elements of that society, so you must also not trash. You want to live in a society where, if you get to be a firefighter, you will enter in a burning building, or wtv. That society would make you happier. Much more, than a society where people don't do their role correctly, and scam everyone secretly.
- And it isn't 100% logical. Say, you want to live in a society, where one healthy person doesn't give his organs to save five different others. Even if that is maybe not justified. You just say "yeah, but that's the correct rule to me, the society I want to live in, where you don't have to do that".
- This is what morals is, basically.
- And you can improve taht. Improve the rules of the society, so that happiness is maximized. That's society saying it's correct now, to let same sex people love or wtv. Or fair wealth distribution based on effort...
- So again, the summary would be, for me: "you do what you do, /so other people can be in the same place you are, in the future/". Or shorter, the common phrase of "do what you would want others to do in your place".
- I hope you see this..
I love you Hank! You’re my biggest inspiration to move forward and keep learning in life!!
I learned a lot from this video!!
An analogy that helped me along the way was, a community in a zombie apocalypse working together, people have their jobs, then some guy goes rogue and tries to take over
It's really cool to see this part of science communication, the initial thoughts in service of a better explanation
Your "working through it" turns out to be significantly more succinct and self-consistent than a lot of my "final version" efforts. I'd say you've basically arrived at an effective way to communicate these concepts.
Either way, it's a great think piece. I immediately digressed to thinking about human societies as the control mechanisms that allow individual humans to cooperate for the advancement of society rather than strictly individual benefit … and how selfish/individualistic/power hungry persons behave exactly the same way as cancerous cells-transgressing and subverting those cooperative mechanisms. Ultimately to basically the same effect.
That was really cool! I've never thought about cancer like that. It absolutely blew my mind when I realized that ants were basically an extension of the queen rather than individuals. Ants really are like single celled organisms and its crazy that that works for them (and wasps etc.)
Hank - I have been watching you and SciShow since your earliest of days there
I lost my father to lung cancer in 2011 - he died the day after my 30th birthday; it was a long sad road for him, he was diagnosed in February and he passed in December - I was his caregiver taking him to his appointees and cooking and cleaning for him, I was his rock…. it was tough, I’d never dealt with someone I know having cancer nor had I ever lost anyone close to me before - I remember watching SciShow even back in those days and the sound of your voice and content always provided much relief during the time my father was fighting for his life - I’ll never forget it
Once again you have provided great insight with this video - thanks much for the upload
Take care of yourself brother - you have a big fan rooting and cheering for you right here - keep the awesome content coming and don’t ever stop my friend, don’t ever stop….
💪🔥🤙
I’m currently seeing a haematologist-oncologist to investigate possible lymphoma/leukaemia. (They say they’re not sure yet which it is coz I have labs and symptoms consistent with both groups!). It’s very scary, but Hank’s videos really help me. Thank you Hank.
This episode reminds me of the SciShow episode about the “single cellular dog.”
Ask for venclexta plus azacitidine, that cure my father leucemia N1p1 gene was crippled. ...No more sugar, a lot of water
I actually saw that video recently and when he started off with “Hank, we all know what cancer is!” I lost it a little 🥲
I love that you’re looking for a fun way to explain cancer.
Thank you for taking us with you on this thought journey, it is clear to me now that my thought processes are a lot slower than yours. I am not saying that it is a bad thing, I just found it slightly hard to follow all your thoughts throughout the video, but at least I found it interesting. I got a little bit stuck on the fact that ants are mostly identical copies with the same genes that they get from the ant queen. Thinking about the difference between cells in our bodies and that they normally don't work for their individual good, but for the good of the organism, it then becomes profoundly interesting that cancer cells seem to break that pattern in order to create more of themselves, which is not good for the body and organism. Contrasting that to how different humans can be within the limits of a human being, it is surely a lot to take in and deal with in terms of thought process and sorting out what we want to use, maybe to increase our own chance of survival. Thank you again for all these thoughts, it sure is a lot. Then again, if we can't improve ourselves from dealing with facts, how are we going to improve our chances of survival? This will be on my mind for quite some time.
+
Thinking slow about complex issues is good for the mind. It's too easy to gloss over important steps otherwise.
Ants are identical genetic copies *but* they are also a product of their environment, as Hank mentions, smell dictates so much of their behavior -- whether it is fighting, building, trash collection, tending to the young larva, or myriad other duties. In away, our cells do the same, they specialize based on stimuli and instructions from DNA. (For an example of how that environment can be so critical, you need only look at kids who suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome or other maladies that interfere with the development of important cells).
Hope that helps.
I really do think it's not about speed, it's about familiarity. I'm familiar with all of these ideas already so I can jump around in them more easily.
@@x--. I like the fact that some ant colonies are so large that scientists debate whether they can be counted as the largest living organism on earth, as in one ant colony is a combined organism.
Hank, I really liked the ant colony metaphor and the overall explanation - made sense!
Continuing the ant colony metaphor, cancer arising would be like a sect of ants going rogue. The environment they're in (the ant colony / your body) is hostile to this new faction (the rogue ants / the cancer) but this rogue faction has designs of survival of their own (not being killed / cancerous growth). These designs involve tricking the colony/body into not destroying them with pheromones/signals, stealing food/blood from the colony/body at large, infiltrating into other areas as necessary, etc. Neither are doing this maliciously or consciously or have any evil intent, even if it's harmful to their host colony/body. They're just trying to survive and propagate themselves.
To put it lightly, with the regression to single-celled behaviour, feel free to insert a "Return to Monke" meme here.
Thank you for putting in the effort and energy to keep the content coming, rest up and be well.
the sci-show video about the "immortal dog" is what made me make the conceptual shift in my head about cancer. i think the concepts you were wrestling with here combined with that could be synthesized into a more succinct explanation of what you're getting at.
seeing you work through this in real time made me laugh a bit because i know i must sound similar when i'm stream-of-adhd-consciousness working through something to people at my university.
As a Brain Cancer survivor who has done a good bit of research on Glioblastomas, and a variety of other cancer cells, I really loved the way you explained such a difficult set of concepts. Being able to convey such difficult things in ways that even kids can grasp it is a gift. The problem with it is that it gave me flashbacks as I fought not once, but twice to outsmart it. It literally is like a sort of extraterrestrial parasite that was locked in my skull and would use my brain as it's food. And there would be no way to get it out!!! Its cloaking itself from my own natural defenses, and when confronted with massive weapons such as radiation and/or chemical warfare, it survives!!! It's not only able to survive like the sneaky parasite that it is, but now it knows what to expect in future attacks!!! It is constantly improving its defensive and offensive capabilities to survive and ramp up multiplication of its force. Cancer cell's mutation power is insane. Like not of this planet. (the movie "Life" gave me nightmares as it is a horror movie about a very unique, never seen before, alien organism that despite it's size had tremendous abilities and intelligence). That's how I envision Cancer and why I think that soon, immunotherapy treatment options will become the go-to strategy to defeat this monster. Teach the immune system to detect the cloaking mechanism and other subtle hints that Cancer cells use against the body, in order to hunt them exclusively without dropping nukes and anthrax that kills all the good cells we actually need. One day I hope, cancer will be considered no more than a nuisance like the common cold.
Holy wow! Well, I would like to say congratulations on your own personal extinction event! Glad to still have you around, explaining the intricate world around and within us and just being generally awesome. I feel like "congratulations on your own personal extinction event" could be a sticker or something lol
I caught my bladder cancer before it got horrible when I was 25. This speaks to me in a way I could never truly express. Thank you for everything you have done but this might be the best to me. Keep it up and I’m happy you are doing ok.
Hey, I can’t help but be a little curious, but how did you manage to catch it early? 😮 I’m glad you’re OK!
I had never thought of cancer in terms of evolution, but now it makes so much more sense! I'm definitely going to be using the ant colony analogy if I ever need to explain it to anyone else.
I love that you can still call cancer “neat” after everything that it’s done to you. Hank, you can truly get along with anyone 💜
This video made perfect sense to me somehow lol 😅 thanks hank for explaining it in such a way that it's easier to understand ❤ I hope you're feeling better 🫂
I appreciate this explanation so much because it's direct enough for anyone to understand. Often, I am impatient with people who say they want "a cure for cancer." This is a good way to say, "It's not that simple." Thanks, and best wishes.
it just breaks my heart that one of the penultimate educators of our entire generation is freely having this brain storm about the absurdity of advanced multicellular existence and that most people consuming this will probably not have the capacity to really grapple with the existential discomfort of it to have independent conversations outside of this. Love you Hank, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and experience. You're a treasure.
It's the intentionality that trips people up. You addressed it briefly. The cells aren't *trying* to do anything. There is no consciousness and no active choice. I think the idea of treatment-resistant cancer cells is a good way to explain it. The ones that didn't die are the ones that can continue replicating themselves and the traits that helped them survive. But they're not searching for tricks and solutions; they just are. It's the end result that proves the success, ie not dying for longer than everyone else
no comments? sending love to you, hank. happy you’re doing well.
I think that looking at cancer as a totally separate species is a really great and healthy perspective. And it makes total sense in the context that you, yourself, are essentially a biome of microorganisms. You're ever the peoples' scientist, sir! And you look wonderful!
I like to use colors to explain heredity, if mom is blue and dad is yellow, their kids are green. If you go deeper, it has to get more complicated. So maybe mom and dad are both greens, each made up of yellow and blue. Then you get into the Punnett square and show that the kids would be blue 25% of the time, yellow 25% of the time, and yellow+blue aka green for the rest. Wishing you good health and minimal side effects! 🙏
@5:30 I'm reminded of a realization in the Baru Cormorant books that gay, lesbian and ace people can be societally/biologically important by contributing to the safety and wellbeing of their reproducing family members! And now I wanna cry again a little. Love you Hank!
idk about you but having my value as a queer individual reduced to merely serving the needs of breeders isn't very appealing
@@rhael42 Hey there, I’m not straight, but I just wanna say straight people “breeders” is kind of gross. There’s plenty of cishets out there who don’t want or physically cannot have children. You almost sound like a sexist going “well yeah women are meant for having babies” and all that. Don’t do that.
You have a point, absolutely I agree with you. Human value should not be weighed by how “useful” you are.
But calling human people “breeders” is so grossly disrespectful. They’re complex human beings just like us. Thank you.
@@rhael42 Not to mention that you and the original commenter are COMPLETELY missing out on the fact that gay people can reproduce just fine…
Like those who had kids before they realised they weren’t straight. Or bisexuals. Or trans people. Etc. Etc.
Or the fact that straight people sometimes can’t reproduce either.
Yeah. Please think about it…
My husband works in cancer research. He's very pessimistic on a general cure for cancer, even though the goal of his job is to find better ways to treat and potentially cure certain kinds of cancer. Because cancers are as individual as the people that have them, each is unique. They may share certain traits, but in the end, no one will have the exact same cancer cells as someone else because they are unique to you. And that's part of what makes a general cure for cancer hard.
Hank for president 2024!!!
This explanation worked for me! The ant hill analogy was a perfect vehicle. It's a complicated distinction but every step you laid out I was like 'ah, okay yes this makes sense'. Good scaffolding 👌 Thanks, Hank!
Although I think having some (very basic) knowledge about stem cells helped me make part of the leap here, too? Trying to backstep through the connections I made during this video.
The Selfish Gene is a great book to help conceptualize this topic! I would like to comment how much I enjoyed my personal takeaway from the The Selfish Gene. The Gene Theory took away an egotistical perspective I had on the reason for my being here. From what I understood, I (and other humans and organisms combined) are just a byproduct that arose from genes just trying to create hosts to better their fecundity, their reproductivity. That means my whole experience and the experiences combined of all organisms (memories, affect, knowledge, our brains, hearts etc.) were never the main goal, it was a lucky byproduct that came from genes needing better hosts to reproduce. Therefore, humans were created! (And animals, and plants, and all other organisms that inherit genes alike!) Some people I talk to find my takeaway sad and even hopeless to think that human beings and their ability for consciousness, feelings, etc are "just" a byproduct, and I can understand that. But I ultimately think there's something kind of cool about having sentience, memories, experiences, and consciousness and all of this experience that I (and all organisms, including humans) experience while not even being the primary goal. It's kinda cool to be the sidebar occurrence, or the unsuspected happening, but still feel like the main character... And above all knowing that, I'm not. I am not the main character at all. (I as in myself, but really as the human race.) **All this is only to be applied if we accept the assumption I proposed in that humans are indeed a byproduct of gene survival, which could 100% be a false perspective** :)
Sorry to give my thoughts, instead of leaving you alone, maybe just don't read but I leave it in case you do want:
1- Not necessarily their fecundity, as in number of children had per individual, but success in reproducing in general, in going to the next generation above harms, scarcities
2- Maybe that's how it started, but once you have a conciousness, "what the gene was doing" doesn't matter for what you think gives meaning to your life.
It only matters, in that, if you become an antisocial species for example, well... you may even stop reproducing altogether. If you just have worse societies, the gene doesn't care.
3- I think meaning is, maximizing pleasure, and for that, to "do the correct thing". The digestive cell, can only be "happy" doing it's job as a digestive cell, if it does its role. If others before and others after, don't do their role, wherever they happen to be placed, then that body won't exist. That cell wouldn't be there in a body if other cells didn't do their role, the correct thing, and future cells won't be where she is, if she doesn't do her job. And the happiest she can be, is as part of such a body. And to ask from others to do the correct, you have to do the correct yourself. So to be happiest, sometimes she has to, be the ant that dies for the colony, for example, if that's her role/place she happens to be in. And so on.
Great video!
The ant analogy is quite good!
So:
Ant - Cell
Ant colony - Organisms
The way of ant thinking - Genes
Rouge ant - Cancer cell
Smells - "Signals" (Hormones, idr idr)
The single cell - multi cell transition: For many years there were single ants, but then there was a change in the way of thinking and the same thinking ones come together (not 100% true). They didn't care about themselves but about the ideology, they would even give up their own life for the benefit of the grup... They gave each other different tasks, some gather food, others defend the ant colony, some are giving birth to other ants... To communicate they made a complex sistem of signaling using smells. There are millions of smells that tell ants what to do.
Cancer: In some colonies there evolved one (roge) ant that lost those smell receptors and doesn't know how to act for the benefit of the grup. It can replicate as it wishes, it steals resources away from the colony and uses them in less efficient ways...(bigger glucose uptake...) The roge colony can secrete smells that tell the healthy ants to build routes near/through the rouge territory (angiogenesis), so that the rouge ants can steal resources more easily.
Tissue invasion: When the rouge ants venture in the healthy parts of the colony the healthy ants secrete "go away, it's crowded" smells, but the rouge ants can't smell them, and the place becomes too crowded for the normal ants to do their jobs, some of theme even die.
Imune system: The normal ants that are responsible for protection of the colony don't respond to the rogue ones because they look just like them and secret "don't kill me" and/or "I'm one of you" smell.
Mutations: The roguer the ant is and the more extreme/selfish it's way of thinking is the more it reproduces and the more food it gets. The roguer ones push out the healthy ones and even the less rogue ones.
Hodking cells: Some ants can secrete so strong smells that they attract many other totally healthy ants near them. And form big swollen parts of the ant hill.
Cancers are realy interesting from the molecular point of view, but can of course be devastating for ones that get it. Good luck and hope everyone is doing well.
You’re newest video on climate change was privated while I was watching it. Suddenly in the middle it was unavailable, that’s never happened to me before!
same for me! I was so confused
@@Westerlywick the video is back if you wanna finish watching! Lol
thanks for tagging me@@Lauren_Ipsum
I really enjoyed this uncensored exploration. Thank you for sharing it. I have a much better understanding of Cancer now and hadn't quite made all those leaps. I was able to follow it, though I suspect you will be able to put it in more succinct phrasing shortly. But the basic idea of our bodies being a multicellular organism that work together and the cancer cells being like "yea, Imma gonna go back to every Cell for Itself" is really neat. And screwed up.
Why'd you delete the climate video?
I followed that entire explanation. Thank you for taking the time to break it down in a way that no one has before.
I think this was an accidental publish
Edit - appears to be fixed now
i don’t think so, he signs off at the end.
@@flclhackinitially there was no sound, and no thumbnail... Just seemed like it was prematurely published by a few minutes
I think for me it’s more people don’t understand how serious and scary this journey can be so when they have a hard time understanding cancer they have a hard time accepting the fact your different now and I don’t like it but all we can do is educate and encourage and support each other in this walk please if you need a hand I’m here brother I pray and wish you the best 👊🏼👊🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼. Leukemia AML Survivor here 🧡🧡🧡
I loved this video. A sense of something bugging you at night and you just talked it through. I was anxious that it would worm round to news about your diagnosis but Im pleased youre just musing -, trying to make the complex understandable and reaching out to your community for their input.
I think you nailed it at the end.
I think a great way to explain this in terms that people can easily understand and identify with is to frame the cancer cell as an underdog that rejects its overlord and figures out how to live for itself, for the perpetuation of its own future, not the future of 'the Man.' Unfortunately this is horrifying, in many ways! Cancer as a single-celled organism that figures out how to escape the mind control orders to self destruct and continues to evolve ways to stay alive itself instead of as a tool to perpetuate its host organism is definitely something people who often root for the underdog in both real and fictional stories can understand! But it frames cancer as heroic, and that's not great. Loved the video, Hank!
I remember watching your brother and you 17 years ago! A lot has changed…. And you look a lot olderrr! Glad you are cancer free!
I completely agree. We barely understand Cancer. Almost a century ago, my Great Uncle George started working for an organisation studying Cancer. He was already working as a GP and welcomed the invitation to join and cure cancer. By 1938 it became apparent that this was a much bigger beast. In 1939 he had to take 6 year break to deal with more pressing matters. When he passed away in the 1970s after a lengthy career in the field, Surgery was still the main treatment. To lose a friend today from a specific type of leukaemia, seems intentionally cruel.
It’s so much fun watching Hank sink. I feel like I learned a conceptual mapping mechanism there, or at least got a glimpse of one.
As someone with a BSc in Biology and MSc in Bioinformatics, I think you did a great job explaining it. It's such a fascinating topic. I think most people fall into 'design' traps, though. (Even if they think intelligent design is stupid!) The zeitgeist suggests that organs and cells do what they're meant to do, because that's what they are created to do.
What they fail to consider is that it's *all* metastability. The only reason biology looks like neatly characterised boxes is because that's the best way our cognition found to interact with the natural world. It's more of a cascade of random quirks of chemistry that happen to fall into complex piles. Bizarre, beautiful.
At one point in the video, you said something to the effect of "Cancer is when a cell in your body reverts to a single-cellular lifestyle from a multicellular lifestyle", and I think that was a really good way to describe it. Cancer cells ditch the "social contract" of cells in the body all helping the whole organism, in order to rapidly duplicate its own genes in the short term at the expense of long term growth.
Kurzgesagt explains these concepts very clearly in their videos about cancer imo! Comparing the MO of a single celled organism to a multicellular organism and explaining why cancers act more unicellular is the clearest way to go imo.
Dude, this is the sequel to your single-celled dog video! I would be interested in a part three.
This way of looking at cancer makes even more sense when you consider transmissible cancers. In particular, canine transmissible venereal tumor being sexually transmitted really helps focus the lens of evolutionary theory. The fact that it occurs in a social species that has such a tight symbiosis with another (us) opens up a few lines of philosophical inquiry as well.
Based on what you've said, the simple ways I would try to explain it (and these are imperfect, because you'll never capture nuance with simplicity, but to get the gist of it):
When one cell/type of cell is selfish instead of joining the team of the rest of your body
When one cell forgets that its not a single cell organism
For the ant metaphor, its the rogue ant or the ant that thinks its a wasp
The cell is like the "traitor" in a card game, thats secretly trying to trick/undermine everyone else
When one cell is a glutton/greedy
Hi! Cancer researcher assistant here :)
I think the ant colony explanation is lovely, and I think it will work for a lot of science and information oriented people. However, for all people, I find that what helps people most is talking to humans in human terms. So all I can tell you is how I explain it to my patients and students sometimes (Bc medicine is see one do one teach one and that's messed up but anyway) and I do it using a lonely Island analogy:
Your body is a bunch of survivors on an island with really dangerous predators. You got to work together to protect yourselfs from the elements, the animals, find food etc.
Basically the best thing for everyone for long term survival is to work together even tho you get less food if you're good with finding food alone, less energy if you're really efficient on your own, and you need to do more stuff. The best thing for longevity is to stick and work together.
But... We all know a Kevin (or whatever name will sound a little annoying to you, sorry Kevins) and Kevin is really petty and selfish bitch.
So Kevin has a huge fight bc he's hungry and angry and he decides I want to "do what's best for me".
Kevin is good at what he does, he's one of the best survivors on the island. he will probably have more food alone, he will have more time to sleep since no one is snoring, he will have more free time because he doesn't need to work for 15+ people, but in actuality he is making the wrong choice.
Like Kevin the genes only care about making more of themselves, that's what they do, but they don't care about they're own survival (short term and long term) - short term If a cell had to die to make more of its genes it will. Kevin doesn't care about how he'll get eaten tonight by the animals on the island if he's alone. he doesn't care about his own survival, he's to petty and spoiled, he wants to do what he wants.
Long term Kevin doesn't care about how together they have a greater chance to be rescued, he doesn't care about having a consistent supply of food he just wants more now, he doesn't care about the fact he will be guarded at night. Regarding his own long term survival he couldn't give less of a shit.
In regards to cancer the genes don't care that by working with the body they will be more likely to survive long term they just want to do what they want - make more of themselves.
Likewise which goes to both long and short term - since Kevin had a fight with the group he doesn't care about it. It doesn't mind him that by having the group, even while not being in it, he has a greater chance to be rescued, he doesn't care that they will make more noise thous attracting most of the attention of the animals. Kevin only cares about Kevin's fun. Not the group and not himself. Kevin doesn't mind eating all of the edible berries and then burning the bushes because it smells nice, he like the berries, he likes the smell, he'll do it.
Doesn't matter that the group won't get any berries and no meat bc Kevin is one of the best hunters and he keeps hunting depleting the prey population faster than it grows because he wants fresh meat.
Kevin doesn't care about the group at all, he doesn't mind hurting them as long as he gets to do what's fun for him.
In regards to cancer - not only does cancer doesn't care about working with the body (helping with rescue, food etc.) it doesn't care about harming it either (not only not helping getting food but making food harder to come by). Cancer doesn't care that even if it wouldn't help long term it still shouldn't hurt the group -aka the body. It would do what it wants - to make more of it, doesn't matter that it's stealing resources, doesn't matter that it hurts organs by metastasis, doesn't matter that it hurts bloodflow. What will be best for the cancer is working with the body or at least not hurt it. Cancer doesn't care, the genes will do what they want to do even if it means they'll die quicker, lower they're own chances of longterm and short term survival (the cell and the genes) and take down others with it (the body).
I hope it made sense 😅
Damn that Kevin. 🤦🏻♀️
thanks for the existential crisis Hank, it's chilling, as usual.
i fully get what you mean when you say 'and this is also true of humans' at 15:09, i just wish the rest of the world would
this video was soooo good, i love this peer into your mind. we are so alike
I found the most important part of that explanation to be that cancer is its own species with the individuals DNA. I've previously understood the evolution aspect of cancer, but it never clicked with me that the changes the cell(s) go through make it driven to self preservation rather than group preservation.