I leave this here entirely for the purposes of comment and/or debate.
I assume it is reasonable to assume death (in this case, specifically, the process of ageing) is a product developed as an evolutionary tactic to encourage faster adaptation to our environment.
For example, a species whos life span is of a great length has little reason to reproduce. This is because it would strain the resources of their natural environment and result in mass death as a result of starvation/overpopulation. Whereas a species that has a short life span is encouraged to reproduce to be able to maintain their environment.
As such, we would expect a species with a short life span to evolve faster. This is because as the rate of breeding is high, the probability of genetic variations increases. As such those species with a higher survival prospect live more and breed more. However, if a species survival prospect enlarged too much, and it's longevity would be too high for it's environment to cope with. We would therefore expect, as mentioned in the previous, them to die due to the strain on natural resources.
If this longevity is also maintained, we would also expect to see a vice versa effect. As the species has not been forced to evolve at a high rate the species is likely to die out when it is exposed to a change in environment. This can range from disease to a temperature spike/dip. In this scenario life can find itself unable to cope as it's evolution rate cannot match the rate of change in the environment.
We can (sort of) see this behaviour in the most versatile creatures in the planet. Insects tend to spawn in very large numbers with very short lifespans, because of this genetic advantage we find insect spread across the entire globe living in some of, if not all hostile environments in one form or the other.
This then leads me to apply this to us. As a species in recent years we have become complacent. Our ability to manipulate and control our environments is/has lead to the development of detrimental traits in humans, such as poor sight and long running genetic defects and our ability to maintain longevity is now reaching a tipping point where our environment cannot manage us unless we reduce the rate that we as a species reproduce.
With these developments in mind I cannot help but feel we as a species are sat at the precipice, slowly going the way of the dodo. Losing the ability to adapt to our environment, waiting for a large amount of Dutch sailors to thank their lucky stars they found a fat slow bird to eat.
-Merry Christmas...
(I haven't read back through this so if this comes across as incoherent drivel I apologise profusely.)
I assume it is reasonable to assume death (in this case, specifically, the process of ageing) is a product developed as an evolutionary tactic to encourage faster adaptation to our environment.
For example, a species whos life span is of a great length has little reason to reproduce. This is because it would strain the resources of their natural environment and result in mass death as a result of starvation/overpopulation. Whereas a species that has a short life span is encouraged to reproduce to be able to maintain their environment.
As such, we would expect a species with a short life span to evolve faster. This is because as the rate of breeding is high, the probability of genetic variations increases. As such those species with a higher survival prospect live more and breed more. However, if a species survival prospect enlarged too much, and it's longevity would be too high for it's environment to cope with. We would therefore expect, as mentioned in the previous, them to die due to the strain on natural resources.
If this longevity is also maintained, we would also expect to see a vice versa effect. As the species has not been forced to evolve at a high rate the species is likely to die out when it is exposed to a change in environment. This can range from disease to a temperature spike/dip. In this scenario life can find itself unable to cope as it's evolution rate cannot match the rate of change in the environment.
We can (sort of) see this behaviour in the most versatile creatures in the planet. Insects tend to spawn in very large numbers with very short lifespans, because of this genetic advantage we find insect spread across the entire globe living in some of, if not all hostile environments in one form or the other.
This then leads me to apply this to us. As a species in recent years we have become complacent. Our ability to manipulate and control our environments is/has lead to the development of detrimental traits in humans, such as poor sight and long running genetic defects and our ability to maintain longevity is now reaching a tipping point where our environment cannot manage us unless we reduce the rate that we as a species reproduce.
With these developments in mind I cannot help but feel we as a species are sat at the precipice, slowly going the way of the dodo. Losing the ability to adapt to our environment, waiting for a large amount of Dutch sailors to thank their lucky stars they found a fat slow bird to eat.
-Merry Christmas...
(I haven't read back through this so if this comes across as incoherent drivel I apologise profusely.)