"Elaine Jackson"  wrote in
message news:ckn2ia$1ut1$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> 
> "Peter F" 
wrote in message
> news:ckjj1c$spu$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> 
> | There exists an evolutionary pressure that require that dads (and mums) drop
> off before they drain the environmental resources of their descendants to such
> an extent that the entire dynasty dies out.
> 
> I'm afraid I need this spelled out a little. Do you mean to say it's possible
> that immortal animals have really appeared at times, and that they and their
> descendants simply ate themselves out of an ecological niche?

No, I did not mean that.
I just provided some essentially standard evolutionary logic that throws
some light on why we naturally get old and die (and get decrepid when we
are well down that road).

But of course there are biochemical reasons, such as that free radicals
(naturally created by our oxidising metabolism) 'attack' terrifically trim
telomeres who thereby tend to gradually turn into telomeres in tatters.  
> 
> | Any naturally selected adaptation to that inevitably naturally selected-for
> demography determining 'demand' (or selection/evolutionary pressure) must help
> to assure that we die.
> 
> This goes completely over my head. I can't even parse it.

My appologies for being an irreparably sloppy and blind-sighted writer.

In addition, and which makes matters worse, my attitude to doing the
authoring thing is that a little bit of alliteration goes a long way -
though perhaps too long, at times. ;-)  

P
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