Is death a product of evolution?

bad rider

The prodigal son of a goat boy
Dec 23, 2007
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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.)
 

gigastrike

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You have to remember that evolution doesn't occure due to a need, or for any intelligent reason. It's totally random, and if the trait increases the chance of the creature surviving it gets passed on. Since aging gives no immediate advantage that would help a creature survive (quite the opposite actually), it's unlikely that it would be passed on.

You also have to consider that aging is an inherent by-product of our cell's designs. It would be almost impossible for creatures who have cells that are similar to our own at even the most basic level to not age.
 

BiscuitTrouser

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May 19, 2008
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bad rider said:
Hello, im not sure about death by other organisms, we evolve to avoid that so no.

However ive written a large paper recently for my biomed degree on scenesence. Which is the biological process which governs the aging of cells in a multicelled organism. We did evolve scenesence. Scensence determines how many times a cell can divide before its culture cannot divide anymore. People use to think if you threw human cells into a dish and fed them, the culuture would divide and die at the same rate forever. However we now know that because of scenesence these cells would stop dividing after roughly 90ish divisions (hayflicks limit for humans) and then the culture would die.

That happens in humans and its why bodies break down and cease working with age. We evolved this natural death process because it prevents rampent cancer in multicelled organisms. A long time ago when our single celled ancestors were little protazoa and evolved to become multicelled organisms we developed this cell suicide technique to keep our bodies from becoming rampant tumors from birth, rather than killing ourselves biologically at around 100. Apoptosis takes place when you get that old, and your body literally kills the cells in you at a faster rate than they are made, until eventually vital systems cannot be maintained. Then you die of old age. Caused entirely by you. If you add huge amounts of telomerase you can have a cell live forever. However it then becomes a tumor. Lesser of two evils im afraid. The main difference between cancer and regular cells is no scenesence.

So yes biologically we did invent aging and death. Outside sources of death we fight, internal sources we evolve and perfect. It wasnt for development so much as to prevent cancer. However development is a nice side effect.

gigastrike said:
You have to remember that evolution doesn't occure due to a need, or for any intelligent reason. It's totally random, and if the trait increases the chance of the creature surviving it gets passed on. Since aging gives no immediate advantage that would help a creature survive (quite the opposite actually), it's unlikely that it would be passed on.

You also have to consider that aging is an inherent by-product of our cell's designs. It would be almost impossible for creatures who have cells that are similar to our own at even the most basic level to not age.
We evolved that by product. Also jellyfish can be immortal. Turritopsis nutricula is an immortal creature that was the basis behind a lot of my paper.

TLDR: Yes. Yes we did. Biologically it is known we evolved old age to prevent instant cancer from birth. It regulates cell growth and death by slowing it down as you age until you cant do it anymore. I guess thats the end of the thread?
 

bad rider

The prodigal son of a goat boy
Dec 23, 2007
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BiscuitTrouser said:
TLDR: Yes. Yes we did. Biologically it is known we evolved old age to prevent instant cancer from birth. It regulates cell growth and death by slowing it down as you age until you cant do it anymore. I guess thats the end of the thread?
It was informative to know my baseless speculation sort-of agreed with the science if not quite with the same reasoning.

-Edit: Actually does the science explain the variation it times of death between species? (Bar the jellyfish)
 

Yoshisummons

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Aug 10, 2010
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BiscuitTrouser said:
bad rider said:
Hello, im not sure about death by other organisms, we evolve to avoid that so no.

However ive written a large paper recently for my biomed degree on scenesence. Which is the biological process which governs the aging of cells in a multicelled organism. We did evolve scenesence. Scensence determines how many times a cell can divide before its culture cannot divide anymore. People use to think if you threw human cells into a dish and fed them, the culuture would divide and die at the same rate forever. However we now know that because of scenesence these cells would stop dividing after roughly 90ish divisions (hayflicks limit for humans) and then the culture would die.

That happens in humans and its why bodies break down and cease working with age. We evolved this natural death process because it prevents rampent cancer in multicelled organisms. A long time ago when our single celled ancestors were little protazoa and evolved to become multicelled organisms we developed this cell suicide technique to keep our bodies from becoming rampant tumors from birth, rather than killing ourselves biologically at around 100. Apoptosis takes place when you get that old, and your body literally kills the cells in you at a faster rate than they are made, until eventually vital systems cannot be maintained. Then you die of old age. Caused entirely by you. If you add huge amounts of telomerase you can have a cell live forever. However it then becomes a tumor. Lesser of two evils im afraid. The main difference between cancer and regular cells is no scenesence.

So yes biologically we did invent aging and death. Outside sources of death we fight, internal sources we evolve and perfect. It wasnt for development so much as to prevent cancer. However development is a nice side effect.

gigastrike said:
You have to remember that evolution doesn't occure due to a need, or for any intelligent reason. It's totally random, and if the trait increases the chance of the creature surviving it gets passed on. Since aging gives no immediate advantage that would help a creature survive (quite the opposite actually), it's unlikely that it would be passed on.

You also have to consider that aging is an inherent by-product of our cell's designs. It would be almost impossible for creatures who have cells that are similar to our own at even the most basic level to not age.
We evolved that by product. Also jellyfish can be immortal. Turritopsis nutricula is an immortal creature that was the basis behind a lot of my paper.

TLDR: Yes. Yes we did. Biologically it is known we evolved old age to prevent instant cancer from birth. It regulates cell growth and death by slowing it down as you age until you cant do it anymore. I guess thats the end of the thread?
This pretty much sums the thread. Then if jellyfish can be immortal, couldn't the principle applied be also applied to more complicated biologically speaking? Or is the solution to prevent the cells becoming cancerous too expensive in itself. Making it not economical in more complicated organisms?

Giving agency to evolution is a easy hole to trip into and has often become the assumption or preconception when discussing such matters, but we should make it clear that it is not.

I'm very intrigued about this and I'd love to hear more about this.
 

spartandude

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Nov 24, 2009
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gigastrike said:
You have to remember that evolution doesn't occure due to a need, or for any intelligent reason. It's totally random, and if the trait increases the chance of the creature surviving it gets passed on.

thank you sir


why is it almost no one on this website understands this, its very simple
 

bad rider

The prodigal son of a goat boy
Dec 23, 2007
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spartandude said:
gigastrike said:
You have to remember that evolution doesn't occure due to a need, or for any intelligent reason. It's totally random, and if the trait increases the chance of the creature surviving it gets passed on.

thank you sir


why is it almost no one on this website understands this, its very simple
For the record "This is because as the rate of breeding is high, the probability of genetic variations increases" I said that.
 

isometry

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Mar 17, 2010
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bad rider said:
For the record "This is because as the rate of breeding is high, the probability of genetic variations increases" I said that.

So your idea is that organisms evolve a higher death rate by natural causes to support a higher birth rate, given a constant supply of resources.

The problem is that without constant resources, a high birth rate doesn't necessarily mean a high death rate. Situations where a population of organisms is in equilibrium with their resources are rare, special cases. Most of the time there is way more than enough (so birth rate exceeds death rate) or drastically too few resources (so death rate exceeds birth rate), and a cycle between the two.

Your last point, that technology and charity interfere with natural selection, is valid even if the reasoning about natural death is not. To this I'd say that human rights are much more important than natural selection, which occurs on too slow of a scale to be any use to us. With technologies like education, law, and agriculture we can improve our population much more quickly than natural selection could.
 

BiscuitTrouser

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May 19, 2008
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bad rider said:
Yeop it does. Its called hayflicks limit, and its how many times the cell can divide before it cant anymore, mice have 15 i think and the galapagos tortoise has 115. The lifespan is directly proportional to this limit. Im honestly not sure what enforces it, but animals that live longer have evolved to shorten their telomeres by less and less every time. Its related to metabolic rates and the rate at which the creature NEEDS to divide cells (ie an animal that develops VERY quickly and lives a VERY active life will have a short limit - hummingbird)

Yoshisummons said:
FYi You are the third person on the escapist to ask me about my paper. Im flattered! I love explaining this kind of thing, id be happy to summarise it.

Anyway scenesence is basically the process of cell degredation as they divide. Every time one of your cells divide its telomeres shorten, as does its little daughter cell. Eventually they are too short to divide and the tissue/culture in your body cant sustain its cell count at which point the cells already there just sit around until basic functions start failing (cells have a lifespan) at which point they kill themselves.

I can promise 99% of the time your cells die its suicide. If a cell dies messily all its enzymes and messenger hormones would be launched into your blood and that would be... unpleasant. Its called necrosis when that happens and its NOT pretty. Google at your own risk. The enzymes pretty much eat the nearby cells and cause your to basically rot. So to prevent this cell suicide was born. The cell, when it knowns its lifespan is over, takes all the dangerous bits and packages them into a little bubble, and the still usefull bits (like protien and glucose) and puts them in more bubbles. Then some of yoru white blood cells come and absorb it so they can use it.

Stem cells do not age ever. This is because they are caked in telomerase. Telomerase regenerates telomere length. Making the cells immortal but tumorous. But i hear you ask, why isnt my featus getting cancer? Well heres the kicker. It is cancer. Featus's are tumors. They grow at a huge rate into a huge ball of cells. However when the cells start differentiating the forever lose the ability to produce telomerase. The exception is your bone marrow, it needs it to make so many blood cells, it needs billions of divisions to do this.

The jellyfish i talked about can basically, at any time it wants, become an embreo. All its cells lose their current abilities and start kicking out telomerase. The jellyfish becomes a tumor that breaks up into more jellyfish and every single new jellyfish, plus the old one, is now effectively "born again", the cells differentiate and bam, immortality at the cost of becoming a single mass tumor for a bit.

Could it work in humans.... eugh. I have no idea. Its all VERY complex and dangerous, the jellyfish reproduces by becoming a cancerous tumor of its WHOLE body. Thats definately not something we can do. The control of cell aging and death is delicate. To remove it would kill you. Telomerase is a bit blunt, it just takes the control away full stop, every cell go crazy and divide forever, be immortal. Perhaps another compound could give control back, but as we want it? To extend life a lot longer rather than give immortality. Maybe a way of regulating the tumors? If we cure cancer in the right way (a very specific way) maybe we could do it. I have no idea how to administer a drug to every cell in your body all at once though, in the same dosage. Thats tricky. Getting this wrong would mean cancer ville.

Thats a summary of the key points in my paper. I hope you find this all interesting.
 

bad rider

The prodigal son of a goat boy
Dec 23, 2007
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isometry said:
a high birth rate doesn't necessarily mean a high death rate. Situations where a population of organisms is in equilibrium with their resources are rare, special cases. Most of the time there is way more than enough (so birth rate exceeds death rate) or drastically too few resources (so death rate exceeds birth rate), and a cycle between the two.
A high birth rate will always dictate a high death rate. If you have a hundred of the same species (with the notable exception of the immortal jelly fish as previously mentioned) we can expect at some point ten of those species to die at some point. If they are born at the same time, we can reasonably expect most of them to die at a similar point in time. However you are right in saying that it cycles between increases and decreases, but at no point do I feel I particularly argued that the cycle was at a constant. Of course it will fluctuate. However as you yourself say, drastically too few resources cause an increase the rate of death.
Therefore we would expect an immortal species to maintain an equilibrium with their environment as their rates are constant. Death and birth should eventually even out until both the species and the environment are at an equal with one another. The only notable factor which would cause the fluctuations to occur would be a change in the environment, which I would expect to wipe out the entire species through an inability to adapt.
 

bad rider

The prodigal son of a goat boy
Dec 23, 2007
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BiscuitTrouser said:
Sir if you ever feel like throwing that paper or others you write at random strangers, feel free to send us a copy.
 

Fieldy409_v1legacy

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Oct 9, 2008
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I dont think we really need to evolve at the same speed as normal animals anymore anyway. As long as our brains dont become weaker. We have won, we beat nature. The world is ours and nothing short of an apocalypse will take it from us.
 

similar.squirrel

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You're asking one of biology's great unanswered questions on a gaming forum.
Fascinating subject, by the way, and a nice idea for a thread. I know it's not the most reliable source, but the article on the evolution of ageing on Wikipedia should give you a broad outline of some concepts, and the references [which I haven't checked out yet] might also be of use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_ageing
 

weker

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BiscuitTrouser said:
Biologically it is known we evolved old age to prevent instant cancer from birth. It regulates cell growth and death by slowing it down as you age until you cant do it anymore. I guess thats the end of the thread?[/b]
Your half way there, you explained why our cells die off somewhat.

All our DNA has telomerase which is a section of the DNA basically built to protect the DNA from changing. As our cells copy and replace each other the telomerase get slowly damage, allowing our cells to become more damaged during mitosis (splitting), this is what causes the aging progress as our skins starts to sag, and our bodies are not strong and efficient, causing such issues like when you cough you accidently fart, and the many other ailments.

It is uncertain if this is a bi product of evolution or just something built into the organism we came from, from my investigated knowledge at least...

There is a bird under research which has either is replacing telomerase or ones which don't decay, meaning theoretically it can live forever.
 

Nudu

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One thing you seem to have misunderstood is that evolution works "for the good of the species". Evolution works at a gene-level. You exist not to ensure the survival of the species, or even strictly the survival of yourself, but the survival of your genes. Ageing does make sense on this level, however. Genes that are somehow detrimental to your body (remember that most random mutations are malign) after you get to old to realistically have more children will have no bearing on evolution.
 

SilentCom

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I didn't want to read your entire thread but couldn't ou say something similar but instead along the lines of, could immortality have been a product of evolution instead?
 

Lilani

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May 27, 2009
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bad rider said:
I think death is something that happens to every creature, and we've failed to evolve out of it. Evolution is not any sort of a conscious choice, or a result of logic. Traits are passed down, and some stick around due to being extremely common in the ones that make it to the age where they can breed. Evolution is about survival, not making the optimization of a species's gene pool an efficient process.

Even if there are "death genes" and "live longer genes," the death gene wouldn't aid in that. Obviously the ones who live longer would pass on their live longer genes to more children than ones with the death genes. So I'm afraid your explanation doesn't make much sense.