History
August Weismann was responsible for interpreting and formalizing the mechanisms of Darwinian evolution in a modern theoretical framework. In 1889, he theorized that aging was part of life's program because the old need to remove themselves from the theatre to make room for the next generation, sustaining the turnover that is necessary for evolution. This theory again has much intuitive appeal, but it suffers from having a teleological or goal-driven explanation. In other words, a purpose for aging has been identified, but not a mechanism by which that purpose could be achieved. Aging may have this advantage for the long-term health of the community; but that doesn't explain how individuals would acquire the genes that make them get old and die, or why individuals that had aging genes would be more successful than other individuals lacking such genes. (In fact, there is every reason to think that the opposite is true: aging decreases individual fitness.) Weismann disavowed his own theory before his life was over.
Theories suggesting that deterioration and death due to aging are a purposeful result of an organism's evolved design (such as Weismann's "programmed death" theory) are referred to as theories of programmed aging or adaptive aging. The idea that the aging characteristic was selected (an adaptation) because of its deleterious effect was largely discounted for much of the 20th century, but is now experiencing a resurgence because of new empirical evidence as well as new thinking regarding the process of evolution.
Read more about this topic: Evolution Of Ageing
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Don’t give your opinions about Art and the Purpose of Life. They are of little interest and, anyway, you can’t express them. Don’t analyse yourself. Give the relevant facts and let your readers make their own judgments. Stick to your story. It is not the most important subject in history but it is one about which you are uniquely qualified to speak.”
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”
—Terry Hands (b. 1941)