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This is a book about the tradeoffs (if you're God/Darwin) of death. Really, really interesting book : http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Origins-Death-William-Clark/dp/

by waps 13y ago

This is a book about the tradeoffs (if you're God/Darwin) of death. Really, really interesting book : http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Origins-Death-William-Clark/dp/0195121198 http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Origins-Death-William-Clark/dp/019... He first frames the problem. Firstly pointing out that not all parts of the human body are subject to death. Every cell in your body was alive 180000 years ago when the human race first emerged, and even 3 billion years ago when the first cells really started happening. Every cell in your body and, indeed, you yourself are part of the original cell's lifespan. Second he goes over a lot of experiments that indeed point out the trade-off that God is making here : either you die, or you become a cancerous blob, over time. Not creating the situation where cancer will eventually win is also a no-go, for other reasons. Thirdly, he points out, mathematically, what death is and isn't for a human. It isn't nearly as clear-cut as you might think. He also gives the philosophical reasons why death may indeed not be the end of existence (well it isn't, if you have kids, for obvious reasons, but it may also not be the end of your conscious existence for other reasons). Really, this book will change your thinking on death a lot, and after reading it you will understand that not dieing is something that will come with massive consequences.

Retric 13y ago
Your falling pray to survivors bias. If you pick a cell and after each time it reproduces you pick just one of it's decedents as the 'original' then they don't actually last all that long on average. Sure, single celled organisms don't have a built in lifespan but without reproduction anything can wipe them out and you can easily find an average lifespan that's not all that long. As to redefining things so there is only a single cell on the planet that's meaningless. Transcription errors occur all the time to the point where most of the cells in your body don't share the same DNA. Some people even contain a large number of their siblings cells to the point where DNA tests are less reliable than you might think. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics) Multi celled organisms are best thought of like a country it's an agreement between a group of similar cells. As such theirs plenty of edge cases where something is both a viable single celled organism and part of an a collective. Specialization is more efficient but not really necessary. As such it's easy to see just how multi celled organisms evolve, but also how cancer is basically inevitable because breaking that agreement does not prevent a cell from being viable in the short term. It also demonstrates that sharing DNA is not really nessiary as for example gut bacteria play a vary useful role dispite sharing any DNA with their host. PS: In the life sciences edge cases can get really strange. As in the closest genetic species to humans is a bunch of single celled organisms not monkey's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa
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nnq 13y ago
> Not creating the situation where cancer will eventually win is also a no-go, for other reasons. What are these reasons?

by waps 13y ago

Retric 13y ago

Your falling pray to survivors bias. If you pick a cell and after each time it reproduces you pick just one of it's decedents as the 'original' then they don't actually last all that long on average. Sure, single celled organisms don't have a built in lifespan but without reproduction anything can wipe them out and you can easily find an average lifespan that's not all that long. As to redefining things so there is only a single cell on the planet that's meaningless. Transcription errors occur all the time to the point where most of the cells in your body don't share the same DNA. Some people even contain a large number of their siblings cells to the point where DNA tests are less reliable than you might think. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics) Multi celled organisms are best thought of like a country it's an agreement between a group of similar cells. As such theirs plenty of edge cases where something is both a viable single celled organism and part of an a collective. Specialization is more efficient but not really necessary. As such it's easy to see just how multi celled organisms evolve, but also how cancer is basically inevitable because breaking that agreement does not prevent a cell from being viable in the short term. It also demonstrates that sharing DNA is not really nessiary as for example gut bacteria play a vary useful role dispite sharing any DNA with their host. PS: In the life sciences edge cases can get really strange. As in the closest genetic species to humans is a bunch of single celled organisms not monkey's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

nnq 13y ago

> Not creating the situation where cancer will eventually win is also a no-go, for other reasons. What are these reasons?