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I think this argument only makes sense on the surface level. If it was the case that humans hit some hard limit to growth (perhaps running out of 'room' to grow
by pinkmuffinere 1y ago
I think this argument only makes sense on the surface level. If it was the case that humans hit some hard limit to growth (perhaps running out of 'room' to grow, or losing the ability to process new energy, etc), then I think it could make sense to do this sort of 'graceful decommissioning' behavior, which we'd come to know as aging. But is there a hard limit we hit, aside from the aging process itself? None is obvious to me.
What limitation is our body pushing off by 'choosing' to age, instead of continuing as normal?
Edit: Regardless of the validity of the argument, I loved that comic, thanks for sharing.
- PaulHoule 1y agoIt's commonly thought that if your cells kept dividing the way that they do when you're young and they accumulated genetic damages you'd get cancer more often.
- Teever 1y agoThat isn't a satisfying answer because humans can obviously generate germline cells that don't suffer from this issue. So the question becomes why can't somatic cells repair themselves to be as healthy as germline cells?
- gsf_emergency_2 1y agoRelated Review https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5586376/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5586376/
- bmicraft 1y agoAFAIK most cells can only divide a limited number of times, because the dna gets shorter with every copy. There is a finite bit of padding at the end (that you're born with) and once that's used up through too many copies, the cell can no longer divide (supposedly).
- journal 1y agobut we can just make another human with new cell timespans? something doesn't add up. also, men without kids age slower but die early while men with kids age faster and live longer.
- asdfasdf1 1y agotelomeres