In the many years since life began on this planet three factors have
governed all life, from a single celled ameba to complex multi-celled
creatures, like people. Birth, reproduction and natural death. We are
born as a result of reproduction, a system for passing on the most
successful of our parents traits, but we die before we have had chance
to reproduce more than a dozen times. My question is why was natural
death not an evolutionary dead end, and evolution be governed by
environmental factors, for example accident, space, food, or predators. And in
consequence old age?

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Clarification of Question by joruus-ga on 08 Sep 2006 06:43 PDT

Some clarification in responce to comments left. 
Evolution is a biological process not a philosophical one. Although
i've asked a few philosophers already. By 'natural death' i refer to
the slow degration of cells un an organism until it is no longer
viable.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 24 Sep 2006 12:35 PDT

joruus-ga,

Your question is a very interesting one, and has received attention in
the field of evolutionary biology.  There are a lot of ideas about why
organisms age and die, and how this plays out evolutionarily. 
However, there's certainly no consensus as to the reasons.

I suggest looking over this excellent presentation on the Biology of Death:


http://www.eleves.ens.fr/home/nkremer/ageing.ppt#281,42,Immunological theory


which covers the current thinking on this topic.

By my read, there are simply no forces at work that favor the
emergence of immortality, and quite a few reasons why having young,
robust individuals in a species makes evolutionary sense, even at the
expense of their aging and dying later on.


Bear in mind that there are many features that organisms don't
possess...x-ray vision, wheels, fire-proof skin.  These features may
be biologically impossible, but even if they are not, they are
apparently too 'expensive' to make any evolutionary sense. 
Immortality may fall into the same group.

Take a look, and let me know if this is the sort of information you're seeking.

Thanks,

pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by joruus-ga on 24 Sep 2006 14:41 PDT

excellent. i have gone through that presentation and feel most
enlightened. It quite clearly resolves my question. Thanks for finding
this it could not have been easy. Well thats my PHD in the bag.
thanks.

joruus-ga,

Thanks for accepting that as an answer to your question...it's not
often I get to provide enlightmentment for a Goggle Answers customer.

If there's anything else you need on this, let me know.

paf


search strategy:  Searched Google, Google Scholar, and Microsoft Live
Academic for various combinations of:


biology

evolution

mortality

death

Its the meaning of life... should not be under valued. Thanks to all
the learned comments from everyone else too.

This belongs in the philosophy section, not biography.

Actually it was. 

For the better part of history the average life span was about 35
years. While people could easily live up to 60 if they would've been
in a safe environment like the one we live in. The reason for the
short life span was accidents, starvation (malnutrition) and
predators.

So-called "natural" death (I'm assuming you mean "death by old age")
was pretty rare up until, oh, a few months ago.

When we are born, our bodies continue to convert food into body cells
and we grow...right up to about the age of thirty. Then it all starts
to break down. And no doctor can tell you WHY. But the Bible does.
Starting with Adam and Eve,[Genesis in the Bible] Almighty God created
them both. But hte Bible says nothing about them having to suffer
death....until they disobeyed God.
(Genesis 2:16-17) And Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man:
?From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. 17 But as
for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from
it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.?
So prior to disobeying, it is apparent that God had intended them both
to live on forever.
And all the descendants of Adam and Eve...US...have inherited the
"problem" of death ever since. No one can argue against this fact. We
all die.
So is there a solution? The Bible says YES!. Adam, as a perfect man,
lost us the chance to live forever, and God sent his son, Jesus, also
a perfect man, to pay a 'ransom' sacrifice and buy it back again.
Jesus has paid the price but the results will not be seen until after
Amageddon [Rev. 16;16]
So does the Bible promise a world without death? Yes!.
(Revelation 21:4) And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and
death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be
anymore. The former things have passed away.?
(1 Corinthians 15:26) As the last enemy, death is to be brought to nothing.
(Hosea 13:14) ?From the hand of She?ol I shall redeem them; from death
I shall recover them. Where are your stings, O Death? Where is your
destructiveness, O She?ol? Compassion itself will be concealed from my
eyes.
(1 Corinthians 15:54-55) But when [this which is corruptible puts on
incorruption and] this which is mortal puts on immortality, then the
saying will take place that is written: ?Death is swallowed up
forever.? 55 ?Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your
sting??
(2 Timothy 1:10) but now it has been made clearly evident through the
manifestation of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has abolished death but
has shed light upon life and incorruption through the good news,
(Revelation 1:18) and the living one; and I became dead, but, look! I
am living forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of
Ha?des.

Death is not natural to us and will be eliminated. Evolution is still
a theory...unproved.

Yes and yes.
Even without senescence (getting old and worn out) immortality is not
possible because of the unpredictability of the environment.
Individuals die from climate, accidents, disease, predation etc.
regardless of how "good" their genetics are. The "better" individuals
are, and this will mean the better they can cope with the
unpredictable environment, the longer they will live and the more they
will reproduce - thus evolution is a consequence of death.
But evolution can influence the chances of death. Mostly this will
mean trying to avoid it, but evolution is actually trying to maximise
reproductive output, not minimise death.
The extreme examples are among plants. Annual species reproduce once
and die - they put all their resources into reproducing. Many tree
species will survive 100s years put relatively little investment into
reproduction in any one year. So death is a consequence of evolution.

George Bernard Shaw's "Back to Methuselah" deals with this subject in
an intellectually stimulating and entertaining way.

It's shocking what people will believe. Leaving "GOD" out of the
equation. There's the hypothesis that death is evolutionarily stable
because it reduces competition. You die so that you don't compete with
your offspring for resources. Your offspring can then use these
resources to further their reproductive success.

excellent 'dops'

Quote:
   >It's shocking what people will believe. Leaving "GOD" out of the
   >equation. There's the hypothesis that death is evolutionarily stable
   >because it reduces competition. You die so that you don't compete with
   >your offspring for resources. Your offspring can then use these
   >resources to further their reproductive success.

A balenced system that makes death an evolved function. Without which
propergation would be hindered by a lack of resourses, food for
example. Any organism with an extended lifeapan would end up dieing of
starvation, rendering non-degenerative life, an evolutionary dead end.
therefore death is the result of evolution.

Hi joruus,

Yes, well phrased. I'm not an evolutionary biologist, however. I don't
know how widely accepted this theory is, but it is often presented as
a possibile selective advantage for death.

You may also want to look at the drosophila lit. There is some
indication that the male produces proteins (?) in the ejaculate that
shorten the lifespan of the female fly.  There is an advantage to
having the female die shortly after reproduction. In this way she does
not mate with other males and produce offspring that would compete
with his offspring. In this way death of the female is promoted by the
male to increase his fitness. It is probably  at the expense of the
fitness of the female. I don't know how widely this has been extended
to other species.

Extrapolating from the above, I wonder how many generations of
omnivorous dinosaurs with extended life spans, would it take to wipe
out (insert pause for dramatic effect) the dinosaurs. Probably few
enough to make it appear as if it were sudden extinction from our
point of view. All that and a plausible explanation for the loch ness
monster. A single dinosaur with a small appetite hanging round for
many millions of years... maybe not, but any thought worth thinking is
worth writing down.

I would count death and evolution as irrelevant to each other. Whether
created or not, living things 'die' anyway, as per the nature of life
itself. Evolution would only affect how one changes, but not whether
one dies or not. I am of the conviction that immortality would not be
achievable by evolution.

this question deals with how evolution has shaped mankind and the part
death, plays in it. for arguements sake accept the following:
  there are two ways a viable genetic line can be extibguished. 1.
Incidentally: an accident. 2. Naturally: through cell degredation.

In the case of accidental death evolution will shape us, over time, to
survive common accidents. as shown by the skull and rib cage.

However cells grow old as a function, an apparent flaw in their
design. Therefore oldage and death must have been introduced through
an evolutionary process, and therefore be an advantage to your genetic
line. This would have developed over many years, and have been due to
the environment. This environmental limitation does not apply to our
current technological state, so old age and death nolonger present an
advantage to survive. consequently imortality (bar accident/illness,
or intent) is a clear and very llightly result of evolution in
mankinds future.