>>16592869
>No, transmissible cancers don't have separate lineages. CTVT for example still traces back to a single dog that lived thousands of years ago. There was no other organism with its own reproductive cycle on the way.
That's a separate lineage from the dogs it infects. Definitionally. Neither the cancer is descended from the dogs it infects nor the dogs it infects descended from the cancer. To say nothing of transmissible cancers that actually do infect outside their species like in clams.

>Name an obligate parasite without a separate lineage.
CTVT

>You need both to be considered alive in any traditional model of life.
Cancer is considered alive. What it isn't considered is a separate lifeform from its host...until it transmits itself to a new host. No biologist would equate cancer and a virus or prion in terms of degree of vivity.

>Metabolism encompasses all life sustaining chemical reactions in an organism, not just where you get your nutrients from
That's genuinely not a counterargument unless you think cancers don't carry out life-sustaining chemical reactions for themselves.

Back | Go to board

Board:

/sci/

Thread:

How tf are sharks vertebrates if they don't have bones?