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Originally Posted by boagie  From your outline the one thing that jumps out at me is this genetic disease, this is truely intrinsic |
Perhaps, but you could even make the case that there are extrinsic influences on genetics. For instance, a genetic error takes place at some stage in the genetic history of a family lineage -- and whether it only affects the offspring in question, or it's an inherited gene from generations past, it is still something with influences that are extrinsic to itself (though not necessarily the outside world).
That said, there are many many other disease processes that I'd argue are intrinsically derived. Take autoimmune diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis or Crohn's disease or scleroderma or lupus. These result from an intrinsic dysregulation of the immune system by which it inflicts damage on the host. Normally the immune system is intrinsically conditioned to ignore the host and only attack foreign invaders (i.e. microbes).
And don't forget that many extrinsic things only exert their influence because someone is intrinsically predisposed. For instance UV light can lead to malignant melanoma. But people with very dark skin are far less likely to get melanoma given the same sun exposure.
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I do not think the fact the an individual is weakened by say a bacterial infection and left more susceptible negates the premise that most diseases are reactionary in nature. Once the constitution is compromised it is further compromised by foreign organisms and their by products, the seige is on so to speak.
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Fair enough, but there is no way to separate ourselves from the world we live in. Our bodies depend on the physics of our world, we are covered inside and out with bacteria, we depend on food with all its macronutrients and micronutrients, we depend on social contact to some degree, etc. There is no such thing as the human organism in isolation.
So when you talk about something being reactionary, what you're really referring to is a chain of causality that has some agent that is biologically external to the disease in question. But if you look hard enough, that will be true in every case, if for no other reason because who we are as hosts depends on our entire genealogy.