> Aging is not an evolutionary disadvantage, so there is no selection
> against it. In nature few individuals even reach adult age, so from
> the persepctive of their genes it is more important to give them
> the chance to reproduce than to give them a long life.
Another pretty obvious reason that i can think of why aging doesn't really
matter to the genes, is that having offspring is a far faster and better way
of spreding the genes than living for a long time is. Having kids that have
kids that have kids... is an eksponential process. (If you get more than two
per couple anyway.) Living for a long time only helps your selfish genes in a
linear fashion. Therefor the effect of a long life will linger of in the
genepool relatively fast compared to having kids.
Hilsen / Regards
Max M Rasmussen
New Media Director
mailto:maxm@novavision.dk
http://www.novavision.dk