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Colds May Trigger Childhood Cancers
Tiger4 writes "BBC News is reporting that the incidence of childhood cancers may be affected by the colds that child has had. From the Article: 'Scientists have found further compelling evidence infections such as colds may trigger childhood cancers. The University of Newcastle-led team looked at 3,000 childhood cancers in 0 to 14-year-olds from 1954 to 1998, the European Journal of Cancer reported. Researchers found unusual clusters of brain tumors and leukemia which were typical of infection-related disease.' As much as an 8 percent increase was observed. However, the article goes on to say that some risks go down with very early exposure to other children, 'In April, a Leukemia Research Fund study found that children introduced to nursery before the age of one were found to be at lower risk of leukemia.'"
I personally think once more research is done into this, they're going to realize that it's not the colds themselves, but, people overmedicated their children with over the counter pills with doses larger then recommended...
If a kid has to suffer cold, most likely her family's financial condition is not good, therefore cannot provide a lot of necessary nutritions to her developing body. Could this be the cause too?
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
Is is also possible that the same children that have a weak immune system and get more colds would also be more susceptable to cancer? So both the colds and the cancer are effects of some other, 3rd cause.
Or are the frequent colds indicative of a weak immune system, which in turn gives way to cancer later in life? I bet if the study was conducted over a broader range of illnesses, they'd find that these children suffered from all kinds of ailments.
Some of the data reportedly goes back to the 1950s. Medical technology was quite different back then. I know a number of people who died around that time from what we now would refer to as some form of cancer, but at the time the doctors weren't sure what the ailment was.
That said, what is the quality of the data from forty or fifty years ago? Are there misdiagnoses mixed in, for instance?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
So you have genetic structures being manipulted in pre-pubescent humans? Is there such a thing as early-onset testicular or ovarian cancer? Something like that could affect the stem cells producting reproductive cells.
If so, this could be concrete evidence of an evolutionary mechanism.
signatures are for fools with hands
It's interesting that for awhile, people were looking at genetic causes for various diseases such as cancer. Now we're back to the disease model, which turns out to also be due to genetics.
Basically anything that fiddles with your DNA is quite dangerous, be it smoking or radiation and the like. Viruses modify the DNA of millions of cells, most of which are destroyed in the process. Unfortunately a few survive, which can cause mutations that lead to cancer.
I suspect the early exposure to colds actually boosts a child's immune system. They're better able to fight off colds, so though they get more at a younger age, the ones they get later don't modify as many cells. Just a guess, of course. I doubt they'd approve a scientific study on modifying the DNA of small children.
Studies are coming out now which link many cases of lung cancer to certain strains of HPV (the virus that causes common warts). This seems like a growing trend. But then again, a weak immune system is inherited, and people with weak immune systems are more susceptible to viruses. So there's still a genetic link.
They keep doing more studies and whaddaya know... everything causes cancer. Except those things which prevent it of course. Its enough to make a man skeptical.
( I
interesting research, but i'm not exactly certain how useful their data are.
first off, the study only speaks to cancer rates in one very small (geographically speaking) portion of the world. the researchers themselves point out the importance of geography, so i'm not quite certain how they arrive at their conclusion that viral infections are linked. i'm not saying it's not possible, i'm just saying that it's a pretty common occurrance when running clustering algorithms to find that you're either converge to different solutions, your clusters actually split "natural" class boundaries, and so on. without seeing their cluster analysis results (and, in particular, what clustering algorithm they used), it's potentially easy to explain away their results as artefacts of the clustering algorithm.
secondly, the article doesn't really go into great detail, but i'm not really convinced that there is a statistically significant variation here (or, rather, i'm not sure what the statistical significance of the variation is). 8% isn't really a whole lot -- certainly not in my line of work. i imagine that when dealing with human beings, most things in that ballpark of 10% can be explained away by looking at the population variance. of course, i am not a doctor, i have no idea what their statistical methodology was, etc. etc. etc.
Are you serious? Everyone gets colds, including the rich and the poor. Colds are a part of life, just as much as shitting and pissing are.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Probably the most interesting and controversial is the link between HPV and cervical cancer. They're working on a vaccine that should prevent 70% of cervical cancers. Some groups feel that it shouldn't be given out, as people get the offending HPV variety mostly from sexual transmission.
Of course, here on Slashdot, we're probably fairly safe from such things.
The BBC article doesn't even mention the actual article, which I assume is this article, or perhaps this one.
Here are some of the juicy conclusion which I assume the craptacular BBC writer honed in on for his/her craptastic masterpiece.
In science parlance those type of conclusions can be translated into, "we have no clue, but here's a guess."
A friend of mine, Greg Cochran, co-authored a paper a few years ago suggesting that pathogens, not genes, should be looked at as the possible cause for many fitness-reducing conditions. His reasoning was pretty simple: evolution gets rid of genes that reduce fitness.
Along these lines, he suggests that homosexuality is best explained as a side-effect of some early childhood or pre-natal infection. The numbers simply don't work out for any genetic theory. (Such as the gay uncle who improves the fitness of his nieces and nephews.)
http://www.seanbonner.com/blog/archives/001857.php
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First : The only thing that the article mentions is statistical correlation. As always repeated *THAT* doesn't constitute proof of causality. Experimental proof of the *processus* is necessary before reaching a conclusion, otherwise it may be anything else, including causes due to external 3rd factor (some other /.ers mentionned bad medication, defective immune system or poor socio-economic level. The article itselfs mentions this may depends on genetic factors), or even pure coincidence (this study hasn't been replicated yet).
Second : There's a lot of virus that can cause cancer. They do this by inserting bogus genetic material into the cell that causes it to replicate, or that disables important anti-cancer genes at the point of insertion.
Examples of such known viruses includes Human Papilloma Virus, of which some variants (although rarer in the western world) could cause cancer of the woman genitalia (to be precise : the cervix. It's a part of the uterus) and is routinely monitored by the gynecologist.
Some of these viruses, like the Epstein Barr virus, may only manifest as "colds" or even be asymptomatic, specially in young children (Mononucleosis happens more to older children).
So, most likely, cancer isn't caused by "common cold" (influenza, RSV, or a bunch of other common viruses and bacteria), but the increased numbers may be explained because some cancer-associated viruses may have "cold"-like symptoms. (Even if the "cancer" variant are rarer in europe than some other parts of the world, as far as I know)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The Intelligent Designer works in Mysterious Ways. Who are we to question? It's all part of the Intelligent Designer's plan. Cancer is probably just the Intelligent Designer's method of solving the need for more angels in Heaven.
At least, that's my understanding from watching crazy religious people any time tragedy strikes.
Wasn't there some news a few years back about the increase in childhood asthma being related to kids not getting sick enough? Food and houses were becoming too sterile.
I think the theory was that colds and flus strengthen the immune system, and asthma was somehow related to a non-strengthened immune system.
I'm not sure how you keep kids from getting sick... mine get a cold three or four times a year (a couple times more than my wife and I).
They'd say it's from sinning and getting kicked out of Eden.
i've taken large doses of dextromethorphan hydrobromine for many years straight as a teenager. i never get colds. although i do sometimes see some odd things during the cold and flu season, but i think that is mainly from the dimethyltryptamine.
i yawned when i first heard this, then i read the first three comments. then i smiled. thank you guys.
Haven't you ever watched TV? The rich never shit or piss!
They're obviously wealthy enough to have someone do it for them!
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
The rise of cancer is likely due to the fact that there are carcinogens in the environment both naturally and because of our lifestyle, there is radiation because of our lifestyle, nuclear arms testing and the environment, and since humans aren't killed by other diseases or accidents, our chances of getting zapped by the radiation, mutations or carcinogens.
Don't forget that in biological processes our bodies create carcinogens.
I don't buy the "there are people who do not want you to find out..." argument since chemicals are known to cause cancer, like Benzine which is common knowledge.
What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Nope wrong again.
All of sudden those Star Trek jokes where they still have not found a cure for the common cold is not so funny eh?
I am not going to make any usefull comments of course. Virusses of a different kind I know something about. I am not even sure what causes a cold.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Just another excuse to stay home from school.
Not to support ID, but probably as a form of negative feedback. You don't want your creations populating your planet out of control. If you've ever written predator/prey population simulations, you know what I mean.
I'm a staunch evolutionist, but "Why would God do X?" questions are not the way to fight Creationism. You are trying to claim you know what some immense superbeing would optimally do when creating a self-sustaining planetary ecosphere, and that's actually worse than the ID-ers arguments.
Haven't you ever triggered and earthquake or flood in SimCity just to see what happens? ;-)
A number of researchers over the years discovered that what was being called cancer was in fact fungal infections, and tumors were masses of fungal cells. Fungi behave the same way "cancer" does: they change the DNA of their host cells, they cause oxygen-breathing cells to become anaerobic instead, relying on fermentation for their nutrition, etc.
Antibiotocs kill the beneficial bacteria that keep fungus in check. Cancer rates started to explode after WWII, concurrent with the rise of antibiotic use. It could be that what we're seeing is actually an explosion of fungal infections, but interest in studying and testing for fungus waned as scientists became enthusiastic about studying bacteria, viruses and retroviruses.
Many people seemingly come down with cancer after experiencing an illness for which they took antibiotics. Since many doctors and parents still insist on giving antibiotics to children with colds, there "could" be a connection. Many illnesses that doctors still give antibiotics for may actually be fungal infections, and the infection remains after the course of antibiotics runs out. Sinus infections come to mind. At least 80% of sinus infections are actually fungal in nature, but the majority of doctors don't test for fungus or prescribe antifungals- they still give antibiotics instead. There are other ways to "catch" a fungus; antibiotics are only one way.
A number of children with leukemia that develop "secondary" fungal infections have gone into remission as a result of the antifungal medication they received. What if their problem was never cancer in the first place, but was a fungal infection to begin with? If you want more information about this, I HIGHLY recommend a book by Doug Kauffman called "The Germ that Causes Cancer". It has a lot more scientific documentation in it than the cheesy title would indicate.
There is a huge difference between two things being related, and causally related. Colds cause cancer? Maybe, but this article wasn't enough to convince me. More likely kids with weak immune systems are more succeptible to colds. And cancer. (Cancer is after all, just over-replicating cells that get away from your immune system's defense, of killing dangerous cells, and replicates ad infinitum).
And retro-viruses are rare. Most viruses simply hijack the host cell's various post-RNA protein construction mechanisms to build more viruses. This leaves the DNA intact.
There isn't one cause for cancer, unless you count the broad category of "cell damage."
Radiation beats up cells, causing damage. Damage predisposes you to cancer. Radiation exposure, I think, has been pretty well linked to cancers. There may ALSO be other, less controllable factors for cancer, such as viral infection.
It's totally possible that we're seeing more cancer because more people are living longer, or because of better reporting of cancers.
It's impossible at this point with our technology to even know how many different viruses exist. But the number is surely many times the number we have been able to isolate.
There's such a thing called NK Cells[wiki], the function of whom is to go around killing cells of the host that have been a: infected by retroviruses but are still alive, as in hepatitis, or b: are cancerous. Basically harmful living host cells.
So under normal circumstances the body fights off cancerous cells on its own. But that response would be correlated to the strength of the immune system. So it's totally possible that kids showing more symptoms of colds actually have weaker immune systems, so as a result they aren't fighting their own cancer cells at full strength. Correlation rather than cause.
Also, somebody made a comment about cancer being associated with socioeconomic status, as well. One of the things that would prevent NK cells from working normally would be immunosuppression, and one of the first known immunosuppressants was Cortisone. Cortisone functions parallel to Adrenaline, which is to say in times of stress, the immune system is suppressed.
So that could be a correlation between socioeconomic status and stress- immunosuppression as a result of stress hormones released, which prioritize the whole body's metabolism towards immediate survival, rather than long term goals like immunity and reproduction (which it also suppresses).
A christian would probably say that cancer was not in the original design, that the world was initially a perfect utopia, and that the machinery of the cell has been degrading ever since due to random mutations and copying errors.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
I cannot comment on the article, other to say that correlation is not causation, although it is interesting. For some adult cancers we do know the cause. Smoking and lung cancer. Hepatitis and liver cancer, which is one of the world's most common cancers (anything that causes chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis can lead to it, including viruses or alcohol). H. Pylori and gastric cancer. Note that the last two are clearly linked to infections. Cervical cancer has already been commented upon. What I wanted to add is that there is a misconception that a "weak" immune system is the problem with infection associated cancers. In fact, it is likely an overactive immune system that can drive cancer formation in the examples given above. In other words the immune system is a double edged sword that can fight infection and save your life, but can also cause damage to nearby cells while it its killing infectious agents. To kill infectious agents, it uses reactive oxygen and nitrogen chemicals that can cause DNA damage and mutation. It is true that at times the "immune surviellence" function of the immune system may help prevent cancer, but it is also true that a great majority of the worlds cancers in adults (which are much much more common than childhood cancers) are produced as a result of the immune response. So it is plausible that a childhood "benign" infection may be related to childhood cancer, although obviously a great more work needs to be done.
I think a few colds causing Childhood Cancer are a small price to pay for the continual protection from Martian Invasion that the common cold provides us.
Stop intellectual property from infringing on me
Medical research causes cancer in rats.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
And given that colds happen through a weakened immune system, the latter of which can be shown to be caused by stress, we could therefore deduce that Cervical Cancer can be caused by stress.
<Gong!>
.
-shpoffo
Some people look around themselves and marvel at the "intricate beauty" but the obvious fact of the matter is we live in a world whose blueprints were drawn on the wall with a fist full of feces. I don't really have to make my case here. A person of moderate intelligence could beat God in SimUniverse.
So I believe it's time to mobilize the Retarded Design camp and 'balance' the debate in classrooms across the nation. Why God is Submongoloid vs. Why God deserves an IQ above 100, much less omniscience. Both sides hopefully presented by supra-mongoloids, but what can you do; you have to work with what God gave you.
you are right
creationism is a pig
Intelligent design is a pig in a dress and makeup
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
cells usually take care of their own transcription errors, when it gets to the point that the immune system is fighting you already have cancer.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
"faith in science and scientists"
Science is science because its based on doubt. I also immediately went for the third conclusion. Perhaps something is depressing the immune system, while weakening you enough for the cold may lead you to another infection. Perhaps its a hormonal problem, which often affects the immune system too, that is overstimulating cell growth in that region for a prolonged period. Maybe it is the previously mentioned overmedication, or a certian type of medication even. All that theyve proven at this point is that its more than coincidental that the two are found together. Faith only leads you to erroneous conclusions.
Children with weak immune systems are susceptible to both colds and cancer?
William of Ockham would agree with me. (-:
Either way, don't feed them crap: breast-feed for as long as reasonably possible, then get them into eating their food as fresh, raw and un-tinkered-with as possible (a tactic which admittedly might not go down well amongst meat lovers).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
You are mixing two things up. The maker in the ID is unspecified. The only thing assumed about her is she made life on Earth. It is quite arrogant to claim you spotted one of her mistakes as that implies you know how to design a complete ecosystem better than her. This is just what is wrong with ID, no scientific argument can falsify it (short of designing a brand new ecosystem not modelled after Earth, performing better than Earth on some objective basis.)
OTOH, Creationism's designer is already specified. He has some characteristics that doesn't allow him to do all stuff he wants to (eg. he can't possibly select random souls for eternal damnation, that wouldn't in character.) So, it is possible to attack creationism with arguments about design flaws in living beings. That would just be biological version of problem of evil.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
When did I say it was? I said that radiation, at least, has been positively linked to cancer--radiation was an example of one definite cause, not the main cause.
Clarification, everything after "Background:" is copied from the paper. I have spaced out the paragraphs a bit more to make it readable.
/. bug #926803 - Why I can post.
As a father, I worry enough about my kids as it is.
This article couldn't have come at a worse time, as right now all three of my kids have a cold.
So if they get a tumor, I'm blaming *you*.
Why is this news? A weakened immune system opens the door. Sheesh...
Well, not IMHO, but that wasn't my point.
So, it is possible to attack creationism with arguments about design flaws in living beings.
Why? Who's to say that some theoretical God wouldn't design in flaws in order to make the Earth a place of trials? School of hard knocks and all that. That's what some of the New Agers are always going on about- that the Earth is supposed to be a massive crapfest because it forges great souls or somesuch thing.
So... what may seem like flaws can't really be argued for either side because even mere mortals can imagine practical purposes for them.
Eh... too big a topic for Slashdot. ;-)
For what I remember from my medical studies, the exact mecanism by whitch EBV is causing cancer is that it encourages cell replication.
- From an evolutionnary standpoint it's logicall for the virus : more cell copies means more virion-producing cells.
- Also, the immune system loosing time on counter-productive tasks (like replicating uselessly, or producing wrong anti-bodies*) make it less efficient and gives more time to virus to replicate before getting destroyed.
- But as any thing that increase cell replication, there's an increased risk that some of these cell get cancer making mutation (Digestive tract ulcers leading to cancers is another example of such processus).
Normally, cancer-mutations are happenning the whole time, but the immune system (Lymphocyte T cells CD4+) is able to detect and destroy such malfunctionning cells.
But, because they "jam" the immune system and make a lot of cell replicate, some EBV variants (more common in Africa, I think, but didn't have time to check the fact) may have increased chance to lead to lymphomas.
Patients with AIDS have even increased chance of developping cancers because, guess what, most of the cells that HIV infects are... the CD4+ : the very cells that stop cancers (and viruses).
So you're right patients with AIDS are much more likely to get lymphoma from EBV (including, I think, from regular variants that aren't normally associated with increased risk - I'm not sure) than regular patient (which need some specific variant).
In fact, with AIDS patients are much more likely to develop a lot of normally rare cancers (Kaposi is a good exemple of skin cancer happening almost never outside AIDS patients).
* : These "wrong" anti-bodies are typical and specific for this disease in blood samples, and also partly explain why patient is more likely to have allergic reaction to penicillins.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Sniffing their nuts? Er... you do realize that "obedience school" is only meant for your dog, right?
That said, I heartily agree with you on the attendance policies of schools. Not only are children made to feel guilty for coming in sick, but the amount of sick days allowed are miniscule in some schools these days. Unless you're in a hospital, you can be sick all of 6 days in the entire year. That's just plain ridiculous.
Personally, I grew up with the "if you can walk, you can go to school" mentality and was very proud of my perfect attendance those few years I managed it. However, since I've started working for a living, my mindset has changed. Initially, I resisted using sick leave, in part for that "saving for a rainy day or major operation" standpoint and also because somewhere in the back of my mind, it seemed almost immoral to call off sick unless I really couldn't get out of bed to get to work. Then, one day, I was sitting at my computer desk, blearily trying to make out the characters on the screen through the haze of a bad head cold, and I started wondering how much work I was really going to get done that day. I came to realize that coming to work while half sick was not only risking infecting my co-workers and making my illness worse through stress, but I was also basically cheating my employers of a full day's work for a full day's wages because I was only at about 50% capacity. I personally blame the Protestant Work Ethic.
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As long as human mortality maintains its steady 100% average your statement is fact.
I remember sitting down with the Bible at one point and trying to figure out how close the 100% mortality rate could be considered. I mean, you have people coming back to life, people being carried off to Heaven rather than dying... I think it worked out as slightly higher than 100% in the end due to people being brought back to life (and presumably dying a second time eventually).
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Since cancer is the result of a failure in the immune system.
100% incorrect. Cancer is an unregulated growth of cells which have mutated either by random chance or due to some external influence (such as radiation), and is not eradicated by the immune system because, genetically speaking, it is as much "you" as healthy cells are; the immune system simply doesn't realize it should be attacking those cells.
To use a computing analogy, anti-virus software will delete viruses wherever they occur; AV software will not delete a corrupt Windows registry because the registry is supposed to be there, even if it is causing problems. As with AV software, the immune system works with a similar, very simple set of rules: dead cells are removed, living cells from other organisms are removed, living cells from the same organism are left alone (and bear in mind, the immune system has to cope with hundreds of different types of properly functioning cells, so adding the condition "cell not doing its proper job" adds enormous complexity, if its even possible considering stem cells have no "proper job" in the first place). Like the corrupt registry, a tumor consists of corrupt cells, and the anti-viral measures are powerless to do anything about these living cells even if they're killing the host, unless the genetic makeup of the cells is so radically mutated that it appears to the immune system to be from a different organism (this is the mechanism behind transplanted organs being rejected, and does actually protect us to a degree by limiting the types and severity of mutations, without the side-effect of our own organs being spontaneously rejected because of immune disorders).
Your attempted debunking would be more effective if it consisted of more than a cliche (taken care of in the methodology of the study, BTW, the people who perform these studies aren't complete idiots), an unsubstantiated assertion based on no tangible epidemiological evidence, and a factual error. Might I suggest you consult an oncologist, or at least Wikipedia? Or am I just responding to a "them experts don't know nuthin'" troll...
Blank until
This is the perfect excuse to keep your kids at home
Why would you want one?
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FWIW, that statistic has been floating around for a long time. Last I heard, it was traced back to a British study which asked after how many males had had a homosexual experience. *shrug* From what I understand, 1 in 5 said that they had had at least one experience. Now, they didn't identify themselves as homosexual, just as having had an experience and some articles commented on the number of them who'd been in boarding school where such an experience is not so uncommon.
Personally, I think no one's going to get anywhere in research until they start acknowledging that sexuality is a continuum, not a 3-point (or in some peoples' minds, 2-point) system. Sometimes I feel like we're back into the days of one drop theory in that all it takes is one homosexual experience and people get classified.
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They should conclude out of this that maybe it is *not* the 'Cold' that is the reason for this observation but actually the Cold medicine.
Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go. T. S. Eliot
"Faith only leads you to erroneous conclusions."
Ironically it seems that you came to this erroneous conclusion by having "faith" in the false assumtion that faith must be in something that is not true, and that is unprovable.
If I have faith in something that is true, it will not lead me to erroneous conclusions.
For example: I have faith that electrons exist. It is faith, because I have never seen any direct evidence of electrons (what makes lightbulbs light up could be something else, as far as any proof I've personally seen). If electrons do, in fact, exist, then my faith in them will not lead to erroneous conclusions.
Faith is not all. If I do some experiments and prove to myself that electrons do exist, then I will no longer have faith in them, but will KNOW.
Perhaps you didn't mean for "Faith only leads you to erroneous conclusions." to be taken so literally, but I thought that enough people would take it as truth to justify a response.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
*shrug* Actually, Jesus maintains the average on his own. He died exactly once. After the ressurection, he ascended into Heaven body and soul. Enoch and Elijah in the Old Testament did the same and Roman Catholic tradition maintains that the Assumption of Mary happened. Balancing it out, we have Jesus bringing a couple people from the dead, the centurion's daughter and Lazarus IIRC. I'm sure there were others that aren't coming to mind now.
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I used to have it, and it was certainly no fun. The cure was snorting salt water (non-iodized, saturated at room temp) and spitting it out. I did that twice a day for 3 days and never had a problem again. But of course, salt water is cheap, easy, and unpatentable, so it's not commonly suggested. I won't claim that snorting salt water is pleasant, but at least it doesn't make you drousy.
what I meant was that companies that make chemicals do not want you to believe that chemicals are the ONLY problem. whether or not its true or not, because nobody really knows, they want you to believe that cancer is caused by a "shared" set of influences. the last thing they want is for someone to prove something like "80% of cancer is caused by chemicals".
i think its far more likely that there is one particular chemical in our environment that is causing greater than 50% of cancers. it could be something as simple as a common preservative in junk food. it could be crt televisions. it could be a certain chemical in the water. it could be cold medicine.
maybe its something that everyone is exposed to but nobody yet has identified it.
its best to assume all possibilities rather than pidgeon hole yourself into a few.
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
Ever read Calculating God? In that story cancer is a deliberate mechanism left in creation. Without it you can't grow another "god".
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
Can you come up with a reason for a mammalian middle ear? The ID "god" might just wanted to show off (or reuse some code), evolution actually explains why it is that way but God of the Bible has no reason whatsoever to create such an abomination. It has a very trivial function, yet it has way too many components required for that function. But it also works perfectly most of the time. And when it fails to work perfectly, it fails because of the existance of a cavity, not because of overly complicated and ridiculous bone structure (well, most of the time.)
I'm not saying that this question can't possibly be answered by creationists but I think it will be just dodged by something like "well, just because we don't see why He made it that way doesn't mean it is not the best possible way." But anyone who buys that line is already lost and noone using that line will convert anyone.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
I'm a staunch evolutionist, but "Why would God do X?" questions are not the way to fight Creationism. You are trying to claim you know what some immense superbeing would optimally do when creating a self-sustaining planetary ecosphere, and that's actually worse than the ID-ers arguments.
I think most of us can respect creationists. What grates our nerves is the fact that they have the chutzpah to invent ID and claim "See, it's science! We didn't mention God, so it's not religion!".
Viewing it from a static chemical perspective also squashes many insights into how digestion works, and cooking (most foods) does a lot more than zot a few nutrients and release others.
Contrast, for example, the cooking of rice, pumpkin or beans (good idea) with cooking rockmelon (cantaloupe), grapes, cucumber or lettuce (not so good).
Eating more raw food naturally pushes you towards eating more stuff which doesn't cook or preserve well; ie, fresh food. Unless it's been exceptionally badly raised (e.g. drenched in poisons or forced up by adding nitrates to otherwise infertile soil), fresh food is much better for you as a class than anything out of a packet or tin.
Also... you'd be surprised how much bacterial expsure you can get out of, say, radishes or mushrooms. But yes, in general veggies can't compare with meat in that, ahem, field.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Every cancer patient has consumed a dangerous chemical known as "dihydrogen monoxide". Hihydrogen Monoxide needs to be banned!
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks