4 ms·

No it isn't. Lobsters have no known biological senescence. The difference between a lobster and a person is genetics.

by darawk 10y ago

goatlover 10y ago
Does that difference preclude senescence in humans being polygenic?
brianwawok 10y ago
The difference between a person and a lobster, is a lobster is delicious.
- overcast 10y ago
  So you know with absolute certainty that a human isn't?
- yellowapple 10y ago
  But so are humans, so I'm failing to see your point.
- hx87 10y ago
  Assuming humans taste somewhat like pigs, humans are every bit as delicious as lobsters.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> The difference between a lobster and a person is genetics. A difference. There are others.
- darawk 10y ago
  The only other differences are environmental. Since other animals that do exhibit senescence share the environment of the lobster, we can conclude that the lobster's environment does not confer this property.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > The only other differences are environmental. That's true. > Since other animals that do exhibit senescence share the environment of the lobster Not entirely -- the environment through the whole lifecycle, including at the microscopic level, matters, and things that aren't lobsters differ in the environment in which the genes are embedded from a microscopic level from lobsters as well (there is, of course, a complex two-way cause-and-effect interaction between this environment and genetics, but that doesn't change that it is a different thing than genetics.) > we can conclude that the lobster's environment does not confer this property. It may, perhaps, be a reasonable conclusion that the environment (at any level) alone does not confer the property, but it is certainly less reasonable to conclude that the environment is not relevant to the property and it results from genetics alone.
    - darawk 10y ago
      >It may, perhaps, be a reasonable conclusion that the environment (at any level) alone does not confer the property, but it is certainly less reasonable to conclude that the environment is not relevant to the property and it results from genetics alone. We can, however, rule out the environment as a sole causal factor. Since the only other possible factor is genetics, we must conclude that genetics plays some role in longevity. Hence, > The genetic basis of longevity is highly debatable is false. Its basis is not debatable.
      - hyperbovine 10y ago
        Actually, it is. I can tell by the way you argue that you are not (successfully) in science, so this is probably a futile gesture, but here is a paper which touches on what I am saying: http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/53A/6/M441.full.pdf http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/53A/6/M4... The paper looks at twins in Sweden. Hence, everyone in the study was subject to more or less the same environmental conditions, while only a portion (the monozygotic cohort) are genetically identical. You can use this design to isolate the portion of variance in longevity attributable solely to genetics, while making no other structural assumptions about the possible mechanism. At the extremes of the age distribution (this includes your lobster people) they essentially found no such component. Over the entire age range you can explain perhaps a third of variability in longevity by genetics. Also, you seem to be under the impression that lobsters and humans are completely different at a genetic level. This is again false. I don't know offhand what the number is for crustaceans, but humans and frogs share about 80% of disease-causing genes, for example (http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100429/full/news.2010.211.html http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100429/full/news.2010.211.ht...). A great deal of the animal genome evolved a very long time ago and is conserved throughout the entire kingdom.
djsumdog 10y ago
I've heard this a lot and looked it up. There are some other sources I found, but most seem to be referenced in this wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality#Organisms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality#Organis... Looks like they're not immortal. Eventually they run out of energy to regenerate their shell or their shell stops moulting and it rots.

No it isn't. Lobsters have no known biological senescence. The difference between a lobster and a person is genetics.

by darawk 10y ago

No it isn't. Lobsters have no known biological senescence. The difference between a lobster and a person is genetics.

goatlover 10y ago

Does that difference preclude senescence in humans being polygenic?

brianwawok 10y ago

The difference between a person and a lobster, is a lobster is delicious.

overcast 10y ago
So you know with absolute certainty that a human isn't?
yellowapple 10y ago
But so are humans, so I'm failing to see your point.
hx87 10y ago
Assuming humans taste somewhat like pigs, humans are every bit as delicious as lobsters.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> The difference between a lobster and a person is genetics. A difference. There are others.

darawk 10y ago
The only other differences are environmental. Since other animals that do exhibit senescence share the environment of the lobster, we can conclude that the lobster's environment does not confer this property.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > The only other differences are environmental. That's true. > Since other animals that do exhibit senescence share the environment of the lobster Not entirely -- the environment through the whole lifecycle, including at the microscopic level, matters, and things that aren't lobsters differ in the environment in which the genes are embedded from a microscopic level from lobsters as well (there is, of course, a complex two-way cause-and-effect interaction between this environment and genetics, but that doesn't change that it is a different thing than genetics.) > we can conclude that the lobster's environment does not confer this property. It may, perhaps, be a reasonable conclusion that the environment (at any level) alone does not confer the property, but it is certainly less reasonable to conclude that the environment is not relevant to the property and it results from genetics alone.
  - darawk 10y ago
    >It may, perhaps, be a reasonable conclusion that the environment (at any level) alone does not confer the property, but it is certainly less reasonable to conclude that the environment is not relevant to the property and it results from genetics alone. We can, however, rule out the environment as a sole causal factor. Since the only other possible factor is genetics, we must conclude that genetics plays some role in longevity. Hence, > The genetic basis of longevity is highly debatable is false. Its basis is not debatable.
    - hyperbovine 10y ago
      Actually, it is. I can tell by the way you argue that you are not (successfully) in science, so this is probably a futile gesture, but here is a paper which touches on what I am saying: http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/53A/6/M441.full.pdf http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/53A/6/M4... The paper looks at twins in Sweden. Hence, everyone in the study was subject to more or less the same environmental conditions, while only a portion (the monozygotic cohort) are genetically identical. You can use this design to isolate the portion of variance in longevity attributable solely to genetics, while making no other structural assumptions about the possible mechanism. At the extremes of the age distribution (this includes your lobster people) they essentially found no such component. Over the entire age range you can explain perhaps a third of variability in longevity by genetics. Also, you seem to be under the impression that lobsters and humans are completely different at a genetic level. This is again false. I don't know offhand what the number is for crustaceans, but humans and frogs share about 80% of disease-causing genes, for example (http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100429/full/news.2010.211.html http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100429/full/news.2010.211.ht...). A great deal of the animal genome evolved a very long time ago and is conserved throughout the entire kingdom.

djsumdog 10y ago

I've heard this a lot and looked it up. There are some other sources I found, but most seem to be referenced in this wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality#Organisms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality#Organis... Looks like they're not immortal. Eventually they run out of energy to regenerate their shell or their shell stops moulting and it rots.