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I think we do have a pre-programmed death. Almost all creatures die when they get older so in order to look for evolutionary pressures we have to look across a

I think we do have a pre-programmed death. Almost all creatures die when they get older so in order to look for evolutionary pressures we have to look across a long time period and far back. For one - if organisms wouldn't die evolution would not happen. Or at least the non-dying ones would stay behind and be left living in environments they are no longer suited for. For ancient creatures food and resources might have been scarce and so it was advantageous for non-evolving old members to die-off sooner. Also, whatever we think about these epigenetic clocks, there are few things to come to terms with: 1) they work across pretty much all individuals (and people with progeria do exhibit older epigenetic age [1]) 2) they work across pretty much all tissues. I don't see how this could be explained through "damage over time". The way I see it damage should be random and not lead to something so predictable that we could use it to guess a persons chronological age with 2.5 year accuracy. [1]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30048243/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30048243/

ddingus 5y ago
I do too. Look at the tortoise. We know some that have lived two centuries. They have their niche, do what they do, and live a very long time. During their evolutionary journey to their current local maxima, I wonder whether they lived shorter lives?
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> if organisms wouldn't die evolution would not happen. Huh? The only requirement of evolution is that organisms sometimes reproduce.
- kkoncevicius 5y ago
  So this is my view. The immortal organism would not evolve. Imagine you and I lived 100K years from now. Other humans would evolve somewhat during that time but we would be fixed. Climate change might happen, new humans would adapt to the changing environment via evolution, but we would be stuck suffering the new environment. The humanity example takes a long time to be noticeable. But for early multi-cellular organisms this would kick in much faster. Thing about micro organism fighting against toxins. The ones that do not evolve and adapt would die off sooner. And while they are still alive they are competing for resources with the newer versions of themselves. So for the colony it is advantageous for the older ones to die quicker since we already know they will be unnecessary sooner or later. Now we evolved from these primitive creatures. And the mechanisms for things like aging, circadian rhythm, sexual reproduction, etc - we inherited from the early creatures. So regardless if the advantage of dying sooner is beneficial or not to the humanity now - the mechanism itself is far more ancient than humanity or even mammals.

ddingus 5y ago

I do too. Look at the tortoise. We know some that have lived two centuries. They have their niche, do what they do, and live a very long time. During their evolutionary journey to their current local maxima, I wonder whether they lived shorter lives?

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> if organisms wouldn't die evolution would not happen. Huh? The only requirement of evolution is that organisms sometimes reproduce.

kkoncevicius 5y ago
So this is my view. The immortal organism would not evolve. Imagine you and I lived 100K years from now. Other humans would evolve somewhat during that time but we would be fixed. Climate change might happen, new humans would adapt to the changing environment via evolution, but we would be stuck suffering the new environment. The humanity example takes a long time to be noticeable. But for early multi-cellular organisms this would kick in much faster. Thing about micro organism fighting against toxins. The ones that do not evolve and adapt would die off sooner. And while they are still alive they are competing for resources with the newer versions of themselves. So for the colony it is advantageous for the older ones to die quicker since we already know they will be unnecessary sooner or later. Now we evolved from these primitive creatures. And the mechanisms for things like aging, circadian rhythm, sexual reproduction, etc - we inherited from the early creatures. So regardless if the advantage of dying sooner is beneficial or not to the humanity now - the mechanism itself is far more ancient than humanity or even mammals.