4 ms·

The only other differences are environmental. Since other animals that do exhibit senescence share the environment of the lobster, we can conclude that the lobs

by 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.
    - darawk 10y ago
      > 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. You seem to be completely missing my point. Twin studies do not prove that genetics are not a component of longevity. All it shows is that among the genes the commonly vary between human twins there is little influence on longevity. A far narrower statement than genetics does not influence longevity. > 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. My lobster people are not captured by any distribution. They do not exist. You cannot simply extrapolate the curve of Swedish twins out to lobster people. That isn't how statistics works - that isn't how anything works. >Also, you seem to be under the impression that lobsters and humans are completely different at a genetic level. I am not at all under that impression. What I am under the impression of is that lobsters have extreme longevity relative to humans, and that that can be explained by the ways in which their genome differs from ours (primarily, at least).
      - hyperbovine 10y ago
        > My lobster people are not captured by any distribution. They do not exist. Well then, at least we agree that the point you trying to make, successfully or not, is pointless.
aetherson 10y ago
I could nitpick your statement to death, starting with the fact that the implicit definition of "environment" in your statement makes it tautologically true that no other animals share the environment of the lobster. But, really, that's not the reason you're wrong. There are two major reasons that you're wrong: 1. The idea that lobsters experience no senescence is, at best, unproven. 2. Even if we assume that lobsters experience no senescence or vastly less than humans, there is no particular reason to believe that the source of their longevity does not depend on things that are vastly incompatible with humans. If "the only difference" between humans and lobsters is genetics (it's sort of not, see below) it can still be the case that the only way to get the longevity of lobsters into humans is to turn humans more-or-less entirely into lobsters. Bonus third thing: Understand that genetics and environment aren't two ingredients that you pour together at the last minute and out comes an organism: they're a many layered system of feedback loops. A portion of an environment triggers a genetic expression which then alters the environment which then alters more genetic expression and so forth. You can reductively call that "genetics + environment," but when you actually try to turn "genetics + environment" into a result, you have to deal with the extreme complexity here.
- darawk 10y ago
  > 1. The idea that lobsters experience no senescence is, at best, unproven. True, but irrelevant. They have extraordinary longevity. That much is proven. > 2. Even if we assume that lobsters experience no senescence or vastly less than humans, there is no particular reason to believe that the source of their longevity does not depend on things that are vastly incompatible with humans. If "the only difference" between humans and lobsters is genetics (it's sort of not, see below) it can still be the case that the only way to get the longevity of lobsters into humans is to turn humans more-or-less entirely into lobsters. Also true, but irrelevant. It may be the case that we have to have the exact genome of a lobster in order to obtain this benefit. However, this fact has no bearing on my point: Genetics and longevity are deeply related.

by darawk 10y ago

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.
  - darawk 10y ago
    > 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. You seem to be completely missing my point. Twin studies do not prove that genetics are not a component of longevity. All it shows is that among the genes the commonly vary between human twins there is little influence on longevity. A far narrower statement than genetics does not influence longevity. > 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. My lobster people are not captured by any distribution. They do not exist. You cannot simply extrapolate the curve of Swedish twins out to lobster people. That isn't how statistics works - that isn't how anything works. >Also, you seem to be under the impression that lobsters and humans are completely different at a genetic level. I am not at all under that impression. What I am under the impression of is that lobsters have extreme longevity relative to humans, and that that can be explained by the ways in which their genome differs from ours (primarily, at least).
    - hyperbovine 10y ago
      > My lobster people are not captured by any distribution. They do not exist. Well then, at least we agree that the point you trying to make, successfully or not, is pointless.

aetherson 10y ago

I could nitpick your statement to death, starting with the fact that the implicit definition of "environment" in your statement makes it tautologically true that no other animals share the environment of the lobster. But, really, that's not the reason you're wrong. There are two major reasons that you're wrong: 1. The idea that lobsters experience no senescence is, at best, unproven. 2. Even if we assume that lobsters experience no senescence or vastly less than humans, there is no particular reason to believe that the source of their longevity does not depend on things that are vastly incompatible with humans. If "the only difference" between humans and lobsters is genetics (it's sort of not, see below) it can still be the case that the only way to get the longevity of lobsters into humans is to turn humans more-or-less entirely into lobsters. Bonus third thing: Understand that genetics and environment aren't two ingredients that you pour together at the last minute and out comes an organism: they're a many layered system of feedback loops. A portion of an environment triggers a genetic expression which then alters the environment which then alters more genetic expression and so forth. You can reductively call that "genetics + environment," but when you actually try to turn "genetics + environment" into a result, you have to deal with the extreme complexity here.

darawk 10y ago
> 1. The idea that lobsters experience no senescence is, at best, unproven. True, but irrelevant. They have extraordinary longevity. That much is proven. > 2. Even if we assume that lobsters experience no senescence or vastly less than humans, there is no particular reason to believe that the source of their longevity does not depend on things that are vastly incompatible with humans. If "the only difference" between humans and lobsters is genetics (it's sort of not, see below) it can still be the case that the only way to get the longevity of lobsters into humans is to turn humans more-or-less entirely into lobsters. Also true, but irrelevant. It may be the case that we have to have the exact genome of a lobster in order to obtain this benefit. However, this fact has no bearing on my point: Genetics and longevity are deeply related.