Re: Re : Cornering the causes of aging (was Re: AGING: Accumulation of DNAdamage)

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Jun 28 2000 - 12:56:30 MDT


"CYMM" <cymm@trinidad.net> writes:

> Yes, it's harder to evolutionarily engineer very long lived individuals
> because such fitness represents a global optimum on the fitness landscape.
> Many many fixes have to be made to a highly specialized metazoan cell. The
> reboot is more local an optimum.

Not really, single gene changes can extend lifespans of C elegans, D
melanogaster and mice notably. Just increasing lifespan is simple. But
they appear to decrease fitness, see Evolution of lifespan in
C. elegans by David W. Walker, Gawain McColl, Nicole L. Jenkins,
Jennifer Harris and Gordon J. Lithgow, Nature 405 18 May 2000
296-297. I think the evidence suggests that at least under natural
conditions extreme longevity is not a global optimum.

-- 
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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