Its probably worth pointing out that Johnathan Wells (an ID kingpin) might dispute this entire line of argument, saying that cancer is not a genetic disease…
TOPS then explicitly rejects several implications of Darwinian evolution.
These include: (1a) The implication that living things are best understood from
the bottom up, in terms of their molecular constituents. (1b) The implications
that DNA mutations are the raw materials of macroevolution, that embryo
development is controlled by a genetic program, that cancer is a genetic disease,
etc. (1c) The implication that many features of living things are useless vestiges
of random processes, so it is a waste of time to inquire into their functions.
Finally, TOPS assumes as a working hypothesis that various implications
of ID are true. These include: (2a) The implication that living things are best
understood from the top down, as irreducibly complex organic wholes. (2b) The
implications that DNA mutations do not lead to macroevolution, that the
developmental program of an embryo is not reducible to its DNA, that cancer
originates in higher structural features of the cell rather than in its DNA, etc. (2c)
The implication that all features of living things should be presumed to have a
function until proven otherwise, and that reverse engineering is the best way to
understand them.
[Note: apparently,Wells complains that this quote is taken out of context. Rather than getting into a protracted debate about what he has and has not said about this (see for example http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/07/thats_another_f.html) I’ll take him at his word that some how what he wrote here is not what he meant. I thought I was representing him accurately, but apparently I was not. Sorry.]