Comment by robotrout | Hacker News Reader

Comment by robotrout | Hacker News Reader

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You're right that aging seems to have an evolutionary advantage. That advantage is increased diversity within a species. Super successful individuals, who would otherwise "take over" a species, are replaced, so that other strains can get a chance. Diversity in a species is as important as diversity in a stock portfolio. What's working great today, may not work great tomorrow, so portfolios and species that survive plagues, asteroids, and global warming fanatics tend to be diversified.

However....

I contend that the human race has moved beyond evolution. No longer do only the fittest survive. We protect our weak and stupid, and they mate just as frequently and successfully as our strong and smart. We've wrestled the destiny of our species away from evolution, and taken control of it ourselves.

Now, how that experiment turns out, it's too early to tell. So far, so good. But since the ship has already sailed anyway, any argument that something is "against evolution" is a moot argument.

I would like to live for longer than 100 years myself, so I admit to being a bit biased on this issue. I think a case can be made that the "best and the brightest" of our current governing and business class could use some augmentation. We've had some great leaders in our past, it might be nice if they were still active. Closer to our hearts here, what if we still had Richard Feynman? What if we still had Arthur C Clarke? Wouldn't the world probably be better? We are not so brimming with extra talent that we can just throw it away after a few decades.

>> That advantage is increased diversity within a species.

Actually evolution doesn't really work like that. Traits will rarely evolve to the benefit of a species. Evolution operates much more strongly at the individual level & even more strongly at the gene level.

It's discussed some place in the video belos but I don't remember which part (of 6). Worth watching if you're interested anyway. Otherwise, the evolutionary reason given there for aging is an evolutionary bias for 'fixing' diseases that affect the young. A disease, deadly at 5 years old is more of a problem for lifetime reproductions then something deadly at 20 which is more of a problem then something at 30 etc. I'm not sure if this explains aging in it's entirety, but it seems like a logical part.

None of your ancestors died at infancy. Very few are likely to have died younger then 15. You can probably trace some that died younger then 25. It would be unusual not to have some within memory that died younger then 50.

Since ancestral humans probably rarely lived (reproduced or contributed to the reproduction of their offspring) past 40-50, it's not surprising that there are many issues unique to this life stage that have had very little evolutionary tweaking done.

What I would like to ask/say (Richard, if you're reading, speak up) is that this might explain why old age illnesses are more severe. It doesn't do much to explain the discrepancies in young/old illnesses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcnCJqDa1us

Evolution is still happening. It's not weeding out what you call the weak and the stupid, but that's not its job - it only selects those who are best adapted to their environment, whatever that may be.

Some people are still having 8 kids, some are having 2, and some are having none. This is not randomly distributed across genotypes, so some are being selected.

Evolution [...] selects those who are best adapted to their environment

Are you sure it is not, instead, selective-pressure that does that? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=437043

If you want to be pedantic, yes, evolution includes drift, but it's not that important when you're dealing with large numbers like 6.7 billion.

yes, evolution includes drift

Who are you agreeing with? Drift was neither mentioned nor intended to be implied.

Evolution is not (and does not include):

  * Natural selection.
  * Artificial selection.
  * Selective pressure.
  * Drift.

gravitycop -Wall -pedantic

Interesting points. I agree that it is most certain that evolution from a natural sense is something we have forced ourselves out of.

I worry though that the further down that path we venture, the more likely we are to hasten our demise. A few thousand years is nothing to evolution. As long as we are completely reliant and subject to its rules - and we are, we are at it's mercy. Our insistence on protecting our weak, and encouraging their procreation is almost certainly a dead end, evolution wise. The clock is already ticking, and it's not if, but when and how bad. Hell, segments of our population die from immediate peanut exposure - good grief!

We are not so brimming with extra talent that we can just throw it away after a few decades.

I'm not sure I agree with this. I think we are. What our current society is poor at though IMO is recognizing and developing that talent. For every Feynmen, there are thousands that "drop out" due primarily to artificial pressures.

"Hell, segments of our population die from immediate peanut exposure - good grief!"

That's not as bad as its sounds. Spiders can't take coffein and dogs can't stomach chocolate.

Point is that 50 years ago, this wasn't an issue.

Playing in dirt as a kid seems to help. At least it correlates well in all my anecdotes.

Good point, but I would just add that evolution doesn't go away just because we are affecting it consciously. At best it just means we are responsible for our own evolution, which of course leads to the question, "do we collectively think it's best for reproduction to decrease and lifespans to increase?"

You've answered one way by citing the best and brightest. I would answer another way by saying that I think the best and brightest are outnumbered 100 to 1 by greedy individuals leveraging their wealth to consolidate power.

I don't know that increasing longevity would decrease diversity, because increased longevity doesn't necessarily open up the "window of opportunity" for having kids.

It might or might not. We have women having children now at ages that would be considered absolutely ancient 10,000 years ago. As we extend our lifespan, we seem to stretch out everything ... childhood, child bearing years, productive years, etc. My point is that, it doesn't matter, since we no longer submit to evolution's rules, anyway.

Yeah, I agree. Our ability to use our brains so that we don't have to wait for evolution is our primary evolutionary advantage.

" To give an example of the way man operates compared to other animals, consider speciation, which, as we know, tends to occur when a small group of animals gets separated from the rest of the herd by some geological upheaval, population pressure, food shortage or whatever and finds itself in a new environment with maybe something different going on. Take a very simple example; maybe a bunch of animals suddenly finds itself in a place where the weather is rather colder. We know that in a few generations those genes which favour a thicker coat will have come to the fore and we'll come and we'll find that the animals have now got thicker coats. Early man, who's a tool maker, doesn't have to do this: he can inhabit an extraordinarily wide range of habitats on earth, from tundra to the Gobi Desert - he even manages to live in New York for heaven's sake - and the reason is that when he arrives in a new environment he doesn't have to wait for several generations; if he arrives in a colder environment and sees an animal that has those genes which favour a thicker coat, he says 'I'll have it off him!'"

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