Peto's paradox

English

Etymology

After Richard Peto.

Proper noun

Peto's paradox

1. The observation that at the species level, the incidence of cancer does not appear to correlate with the number of cells in an organism.
   • 2013, Jonathan Silvertown, The Long and the Short of It: The Science of Life Span and Aging:

     Peto's paradox has the clear implication that somehow longer-lived species are better protected from cancer than shorter-lived ones and, likewise, bigger species are better protected than smaller ones.

Further reading

• Peto's paradox on Wikipedia.Wikipedia