A sprawling, funny essay argues nearly every "design flaw" in the human body is evolution deliberately avoiding cancer, not sloppy engineering
Fragile kidneys, no limb regrowth, shortening telomeres, menopause: the piece argues each is evolution paying a "fragility tax" to avoid a worse "cancer tax," using the liver's unusual regenerative power — and the small intestine's even cleverer trick of constantly shedding its surface cells before they can mutate into something dangerous — as the exceptions that prove the rule.
Saved message
A sprawling, funny essay argues nearly every "design flaw" in the human body is evolution deliberately avoiding cancer, not sloppy engineering dynomight (Substack) · Sept 24-25, 2026 · ~10 min read :link: dynomight.substack.com
— Fragile kidneys, no limb regrowth, shortening telomeres, menopause: the piece argues each is evolution paying a "fragility tax" to avoid a worse "cancer tax," using the liver's unusual regenerative power — and the small intestine's even cleverer trick of constantly shedding its surface cells before they can mutate into something dangerous — as the exceptions that prove the rule. Why it matters: it's a genuinely useful mental model for any system with a robustness/failure-mode tradeoff, not just biology — the parts of your own life, team or product that seem needlessly fragile might be that way on purpose.
Why I saved this
Fragile kidneys, no limb regrowth, shortening telomeres, menopause: the piece argues each is evolution paying a "fragility tax" to avoid a worse "cancer tax," using the liver's unusual regenerative power — and the small intestine's even cleverer trick of constantly shedding its surface cells before they can mutate into something dangerous — as the exceptions that prove the rule.