Re: The ultimate cause of aging

dkomo wrote:


"The basic reason why survival and reproduction decline with age is that
selection acts more weakly on later ages. Imagine an organism that does
not senesce, that is, that maintains itself with the same rate of
survival and reproduction indefinitely. It will still suffer accidental
mortality and so, on average, reproducing early will produce more
offspring than deferring reproduction until later; death might strike
first. Therefore, natural selection acts more strongly on variations
that act early in life and acts more and more weakly on late-acting
acting variations."

Aging is a complex, positive processes in itself and not merely the
negative result of bodily resources being allocated elsewhere (as
occurs in starvation, for example). This leaves open the question of
how increased fitness, which is essential for natural selection, could
result from a process of decreasing performance and eventual death.

.

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