4 ms·
I could nitpick your statement to death, starting with the fact that the implicit definition of "environment" in your statement makes it tautologically true tha
by 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.