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Nature has not been able to solve the problem of ageing because natural selection does not work at later age. The organism has already successfully procreated,

Nature has not been able to solve the problem of ageing because natural selection does not work at later age. The organism has already successfully procreated, so there is no survival of the fittest.

fwdpropaganda 9y ago
Not true. Procreation is not binary. More is better (evolutionarily speaking), so there's no reason for "once you have one offspring you're evolutionarily dead." No, you could have more.
- XorNot 9y ago
  On some level humans are the pinacle of the solution to survivability. We live in every biome on the planet, and are actively researching giving ourselves immortality. We're so successful that the best strategy for a lot of other animals has been to be food or company. Cows are doing pretty well because of us.
kabouseng 9y ago
Not really, if you stay young forever you can procreate forever and "out" procreate the rest of your species that still ages.
- jamesrcole 9y ago
  But they're not really your competition. Their offspring, and their offspring, and so on, are. And "designs" that don't have to put resources into longer life can use them for better propagating genes.
deleted 9y ago
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andrewla 9y ago
That's if you take a very narrow view of individual selection. A group of organisms collectively may have favorable selection characteristics compared to another group that dies younger, even if the death is post-reproductive age. Bees, for example, have evolved to have very strong but non-reproducing organisms in a community. There's still selection pressure on a hive to produce stronger and longer lived workers. As I understand it, the general mechanism involved here is usually called kin selection, and has been discussed as far back as Darwin, both as a potential problem with the theory and as a fatal defect in the Lamarckian view.
gerbilly 9y ago
>Nature has not been able to solve the problem of ageing Nature does not have an ageing problem. Aging and dying is a necessary condition for life to even exist. It's only humans who have a problem with it.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
  Only humans who have a very narrow conception of self. People sacrifice themselves for family, communities, nations, and ideologies all the time.
a3n 9y ago
Might older organisms' collective life experience contribute to the success of younger organisms? In other words, the organism's procreation could be more successful if the olds contribute to the youngs survival to reproductive age. In other other words, you haven't really reproduced if your offspring don't reproduce.

Nature has not been able to solve the problem of ageing because natural selection does not work at later age. The organism has already successfully procreated, so there is no survival of the fittest.

fwdpropaganda 9y ago

Not true. Procreation is not binary. More is better (evolutionarily speaking), so there's no reason for "once you have one offspring you're evolutionarily dead." No, you could have more.

XorNot 9y ago
On some level humans are the pinacle of the solution to survivability. We live in every biome on the planet, and are actively researching giving ourselves immortality. We're so successful that the best strategy for a lot of other animals has been to be food or company. Cows are doing pretty well because of us.

kabouseng 9y ago

Not really, if you stay young forever you can procreate forever and "out" procreate the rest of your species that still ages.

jamesrcole 9y ago
But they're not really your competition. Their offspring, and their offspring, and so on, are. And "designs" that don't have to put resources into longer life can use them for better propagating genes.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

andrewla 9y ago

That's if you take a very narrow view of individual selection. A group of organisms collectively may have favorable selection characteristics compared to another group that dies younger, even if the death is post-reproductive age. Bees, for example, have evolved to have very strong but non-reproducing organisms in a community. There's still selection pressure on a hive to produce stronger and longer lived workers. As I understand it, the general mechanism involved here is usually called kin selection, and has been discussed as far back as Darwin, both as a potential problem with the theory and as a fatal defect in the Lamarckian view.

gerbilly 9y ago

>Nature has not been able to solve the problem of ageing Nature does not have an ageing problem. Aging and dying is a necessary condition for life to even exist. It's only humans who have a problem with it.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
Only humans who have a very narrow conception of self. People sacrifice themselves for family, communities, nations, and ideologies all the time.

a3n 9y ago

Might older organisms' collective life experience contribute to the success of younger organisms? In other words, the organism's procreation could be more successful if the olds contribute to the youngs survival to reproductive age. In other other words, you haven't really reproduced if your offspring don't reproduce.