"Elaine Jackson"  wrote in
message news:ckhf8a$95v$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> >From an evolutionary standpoint, how does one explain decrepitude?
> 

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. 

Any naturally selected adaptation to that inevitably naturally selected-for
demography determining 'demand' (or selection/evolutionary pressure) must
help to assure that we die. And so, decrepitude is a very natural stage of
deterioration on road to unselfishly adaptive death.

P
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