An interesting discussion branching off from questions about the benefits of resveratrol. It seems pretty clear to me that there’s no evolutionary pressure to live much past the time that your offspring (or perhaps grand-offspring) are off on their own. And that it violates no laws of physics to figure out how to cheat mother nature in that regard.
3 thoughts on “Evolutionary Pressure For Longevity”
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Up to about the age of 30, you’re a product of evolution. After about the age of 40, you’re a byproduct of evolution.
Sheesh, Rand, this is long-debunked nonsense, promulgated by people who take all their insight about evolutionary biology from studying fruitflies.
Google “grandmother effect” for a more modern viewpoint. The short version is that in a social species such as ours, your influence on the success of your offspring exists long past the time when they are in your womb. As a grandmother, for example, you can reach very senior levels in your society and thereby direct scarce resources to your descendants, helping ensure their prosperity and therefore the continued propagation of your genes.
In other words, natural selection operates on you well past your child-bearing and child-rearing years because how you behave in those circumstances influences how often your genes are propagated.
For similar reasons, human genes exist and flourish which code for behaviour that reduces the probability of individual reproduction (e.g. being a geek or a risk-taking explorer). These things are adaptive for the genetically-related tribe, even if they are not for the lone individual, and in a social species, that matters.
Oops, Rand, I see by your parenthetical comment (“or perhaps grand-offspring”) that you understand this already. Still, it’s such a common canard to think evolution stops at sexual maturity that others may benefit from my little rant.