X-Message-Number: 26188
Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 10:42:24 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Evolution and reasons for aging

To Anthony:

As I understand aging, the problem is that every one of the factors
you list occur as we age. It's not a matter of one or another.
You do omit one other kind of event that happens: apparently as
cells age they not only cease to divide but also cease to keep
themselves alive. However this idea as a basic change causing
aging once more falls afoul of various tissues which show no 
such changes.

On the other hand gerontologists have gone very deeply (with the
tools we have now) into the biochemistry of aging, and may have
(for instance) found drugs which cause the same changes as
calorie restriction does, at least in a species of worm. They
might even work with mammals, if tested. I suspect that there
IS a basic change (which may involve changes in a system of
biochemicals essential to our survival) that can be prevented,
and if prevented will cause US, as mammals rather than worms,
to live much longer.

To Basie:

Your argument that the changes of aging evolved to prevent
inbreeding seems unlikely to begin with. However it also suffers
from a failure to distinguish the levels at which a factor
may work: even if your evolutionary explanation is correct,
it says nothing about the exact metabolic and biochemical 
changes which cause aging and which might be stopped or
edited to keep them from doing so. All of the proposed 
explanations weren't concerned at all about evolutionary
reasons for aging, they were theories about how it 
happens.

Moreover evolutionists have actually come up with a basic 
theory on the evolution of aging --- though it says nothing
at all about what would happen if we stopped aging ourselves.
In the wild most animals live for much less time than they
would in zoos where we care for them carefully. This happens
not because they age faster in the wild, but because they're
subject to all kinds of stress and diseases they don't get
at all in zoos or as pets. This means that any gene that
prolonged the lifespan of the animal would simply fail to
have much effect, because those having this gene would 
die before it came into effect, not because of aging but
the stress and diseases from living in the wild. And so
such genes disappear.

This theory actually predicts that we will live longer
by evolution alone --- though I doubt that anyone reading
this would be interested in that. You see, everyone now
lives much longer than people did even 200 years ago. That
survival actually promotes genes which slow aging and causes
longer lifespans.

Not only finding ways to prolong our lives doesn't work
against evolution, evolution is actually working to do 
the same. 

            Best wishes and long long life to all,

                Thomas Donaldson

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