dkomo  wrote 

> Well, it turns out that the above analysis has a serious flaw in it. 
> Can you tell what the flaw is?  

Good question:

I think the flaw has to do with the tendency to assume that NS is
applicable to an absolute level, ie. the individual.  I've posted the
following previously:

***************************************

first have to get beyond
the unreasonable intellectual constraints of the dogmatic
interpretation of the Darwinian imperative (that lifeforms
[individuals] conform to maximizing their own survival and
reproductive
success).  And I think we can do this *without* throwing out this
phrase and its explanatory value completely but by revising it with
respect to its assumed unit of selection, the individual.  Accordingly
the Darwinian imperative can be restated as per the following:
Biological phenomena conforms to maximizing its own survival and
reproductive success.  The difference here is that there is no stated
unit of selection.

I think the only way we can make sense of senescence as a surival
strategy.  (I know that sounds funny, but it's accurate.)  Is to
realize that selection isn't solely focussed at the level of the
individual, or any other stated unit of selection.  Thus the only way
that it makes any sense is in the context of other higher levels of
biological phenomena--the popuation, the lineage, the ecosytem, even
the group or community--becoming stronger or more viable--or better
able to adjust to changing conditions--as a result of senescene.

Another way to look at it is in the context of the observation that
everyday millions of our cells in our own bodies die.  Why does this
happen?  I suppose its a mechanism to allow our bodies to change over
time to different conditions.  When we get a sunburn its easier to let
the cells die than try to fix each one.  And, even more importantly,
when these skin cells are replaced out bodies can but more pigment in
them (a tan) so that the sun won't be so damaging to the skin cell.

***************************************

Jim
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