shminux comments on Does evolution select for mortality? - Less Wrong

12 Post author: DanArmak 23 February 2013 07:33PM

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Comment author: shminux 24 February 2013 10:00:23PM 0 points [-]

Originally I was reacting to

How could a distinguished professor of biology, a leader of the HGP and advisor to the US President, get something so elementary wrong, when even a biology undergrad dropout like myself notices this seems wrong?

before your second edit. LWers have a strong anti-deathism bias, at least anti-deathism for humans (chickens might be another matter entirely), and your hasty conclusion was an indication of it, as confirmed by your quote selection.

Your second comment appears to be factually wrong:

There isn't a gene or behavior 'for' aging, and therefore there isn't an available mutation that doesn't age because it doesn't have that gene, and so evolution can't select it.

There are definitely are genes which affect aging, so there is something to select for.

I agree that when Lander says

I don't think immortality is technically possible -- evolution has installed many many mechanisms to ensure that organisms die and make room for the next generation. I bet it is going to be very hard to completely overcome all these mechanisms.

he shows a deathism bias, since he probably does not have the data to support his statement. A more charitable reading would be that prevention of aging is hard and requires a lot of genetic changes, something evolution never needed to bother with, so researchers have their work cut out for them.

Comment author: DanArmak 25 February 2013 07:54:57AM 0 points [-]

When I wrote,

How could a distinguished professor of biology, a leader of the HGP and advisor to the US President, get something so elementary wrong, when even a biology undergrad dropout like myself notices this seems wrong?

That sentence should be read with a 'but' at the beginning. I was saying that I couldn't believe he would make such a basic mistake. I thought I must be missing something. That's why I posted here instead of dismissing the whole thing as him being wrong.

I recognize I'm emotionally biased against deathism and thereby against people who appear to be pro-deathism. But I did make an effort to find out the actual truth.

Your second comment appears to be factually wrong:

There isn't a gene or behavior 'for' aging, and therefore there isn't an available mutation that doesn't age because it doesn't have that gene, and so evolution can't select it.

There are definitely are genes which affect aging, so there is something to select for.

You're right; there are definitely genes which affect aging and longevity and can be selected. And I expect that if they have no other effect, then the selection prefers those variants which confer longevity. It's only when they are tied to tradeoffs or other effects caused by the same genes, that the selected variant may not be the longest-lived.

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