Why does evolution almost never seek immortality?
I get the idea that it's to allow the young to replace the old, accelerating evolution, but it still sounds like evolution should cause a population to go into an arms race of lifespan.
Say that a species spends 10 years producing children, but a mutant and its children spend 11 years producing children. Specimens with this mutation may hurt the species overall, but the specimen is only hurting itself a microscopic amount by hurting the species yet gains an enormous benefit.
Eventually, the mutation would dominate the species, and the species would be worse off for living longer, but there's still no reason for evolution to work in the opposite direction. In fact, if an individual that spent 12 years producing children came along, their mutation would become dominant.
So what's the deal? Why are so many species far more short lived than they could be?
I at least understand why plants that can only produce offspring in a close radius should be mortal, because in that case their presence does have a very significant impact on the survival of their offspring.
I get the idea that it's to allow the young to replace the old, accelerating evolution, but it still sounds like evolution should cause a population to go into an arms race of lifespan.
Say that a species spends 10 years producing children, but a mutant and its children spend 11 years producing children. Specimens with this mutation may hurt the species overall, but the specimen is only hurting itself a microscopic amount by hurting the species yet gains an enormous benefit.
Eventually, the mutation would dominate the species, and the species would be worse off for living longer, but there's still no reason for evolution to work in the opposite direction. In fact, if an individual that spent 12 years producing children came along, their mutation would become dominant.
So what's the deal? Why are so many species far more short lived than they could be?
I at least understand why plants that can only produce offspring in a close radius should be mortal, because in that case their presence does have a very significant impact on the survival of their offspring.
