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ZmeiOtPirin t1_jcjrdex wrote

Reply to comment by chance_waters in Loss of Menin helps drive the aging process, and dietary supplement can reverse it in mice by geoxol

On a very long term timescale, death actually isn't curable. That's because for our genes that are running the show, death is a feature not a bug. It's crucial for evolution and even if it's possible to have a species that evolves without its individuals dying, if that slows down evolution then they would be outcompeted by faster evolving death-based species.

So in order to stop death you would need to devise an entirely different form of life where death doesn't accelerrate evolution AND have it outcompete the previous life.

That seems an incredibly hard task so death may not be curable after all. If the problem is smart living beings don't want to die and are actively fighting it, then nature would simply evolve beings that like dying.

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Georgie___Best t1_jcjyhdr wrote

No.

We evolved in a way in which we die.

That doesn't mean it's impossible to overcome the design flaws of evolution.

We are a very long way away from this btw. We have barely scratched the surface of the underlying biology.

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ZmeiOtPirin t1_jckinr1 wrote

Like I said, that's not a flaw, it's a feature.

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Georgie___Best t1_jckp1yf wrote

"Flaws" and "features" are arbitrary words that we assign to things as humans. I think you'll find most people, if given the choice, would choose not to die. So in that sense it's a "flaw" for us, isn't it?

Evolution on the other hand isn't an entity with foresight and planning. In that sense nothing is a flaw or feature. It's literally just survival of the fittest.

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ZmeiOtPirin t1_jcmxtmz wrote

>Evolution on the other hand isn't an entity with foresight and planning.

A true statement so often absent-mindedly repeated, it actually interferes with some people's understanding of evolution. The metaphor reflects reality better than the nihilistic assertion that nothing matters in evolution.

> In that sense nothing is a flaw or feature. It's literally just survival of the fittest.

Yeah and what I've been telling you is that the fittest species are those that utillise death rather than some immortals. Being immortal is actually pretty bad in terms of the long term fitness of a species.

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Georgie___Best t1_jcttxk0 wrote

>The metaphor reflects reality better than the nihilistic assertion that nothing matters in evolution.

No one made any assertion that nothing matters in evolution. Somewhat ironically, given you are talking about absent-minded misunderstanding, you apparently need to refresh yourself on what nihilism is.

>Yeah and what I've been telling you is that the fittest species are those that utillise death rather than some immortals. Being immortal is actually pretty bad in terms of the long term fitness of a species.

So you're under the impression that mankind is still under the same selection pressures as we were 100,000 years ago? Or is it that that we shouldn't bother with medical interventions, because we are lowering the fitness of the population by allowing people to live/reproduce when they otherwise wouldn't?

It's genuinely amazing how people with the least understanding are always the ones who speak with the most authority. The evolutionary benefit of death is something I would expect a high school student to understand. The fact that we are able to escape the consequences of evolution in the modern world is something I would expect a kid to know.

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ZmeiOtPirin t1_jcuahjd wrote

>It's genuinely amazing how people with the least understanding are always the ones who speak with the most authority.

>The fact that we are able to escape the consequences of evolution in the modern world is something I would expect a kid to know.

Imagine writing these two statements together.

I'd respond to the rest of your comment but I doubt you'll take anything I say seriously. Just FYI though, humanity isn't currently escaping evolution by even the barest stretch of the imagination.

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Georgie___Best t1_jcve68m wrote

You deny that we are able to overcome any of the restrictions evolution has imposed on us? So any time a child is born premature and survives due to modern medicine, when they would have died otherwise, that is what exactly? Any time someone with a genetic predisposition to cardiovascular disease is saved with at coronary artery bypass, what are we doing if we are not preventing a consequence of evolution?

Maybe try having a few days think before replying this time.

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ZmeiOtPirin t1_jcvkln7 wrote

Dude your comment is so utterly ignorant, you should maybe have a few days to read about what evolution is before writing.

Evolution isn't merely about dying. Yes it's a big part of it, and I did call it "crucial" too, but there's so much more to the process, it isn't even the biggest part. Number one, it's about spreading genes. Procreation is even more important than survival and leads to evolution on its own. Stopping death doesn't stop evolution by any means...

Secondly none of the cases you listed are examples of beating or preventing evolution or anything. They are just examples of a species dealing with problems in its own way.

You don't think beavers building dams or termites building a mound to avoid dying from floods is them cheating evolution, do you? Just because you make things to avoid dying doesn't mean you're avoiding evolution. Quite the contrary, you're fulfilling it. Your beneficial traits allowed you to survive where you otherwise wouldn't have and henceforth the living world will be more filled with the genes providing these beneficial traits. Smartness, culture and transfer of knowledge, as exemplified by humans, are clearly successful traits and they have lead to us becoming the most dominant mammal on Earth. To the point that humans and the species we use for food make up the weight of 90% of all mammal biomass... That's evolution in action.

And when some unfortunate person in Brazil or India or the US can't be saved by a coronary artery bypass because it isn't free and they were born too dumb to have a nice job and afford it, or too sickly to keep up with all their disases or too asocial to have a nice support network; then that would be evolution too. But the far more common type of evolution in the 21st century would be when some human beings are having more kids raised to adulthood than others. Evolution is here, alive and well.

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Georgie___Best t1_jcvl2vb wrote

>Evolution isn't merely about dying.

Please highlight where I said this.

>Evolution is here, alive and well.

Or where I claimed evolution is something that isn't happening.

Like I said, you should have spent more time reading/thinking before replying.

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ZmeiOtPirin t1_jcvlrgk wrote

There's not a single interpretation of "preventing a consequence of evolution" that is factually correct. You do seem to believe and imply that avoiding death prevents evolution. I'm not really sure what you think "consequences of evolution" are, but death is no more a consequence than living, breeding or having a drink by the beach are evolutionary consequences.

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