Impact of New Evolution Concepts On Ageing Theories
At the time most of the non-programmed ageing theories were developed there was very little scientific disagreement with classical theories (i.e. Neo-Darwinism or modern evolutionary synthesis) regarding the process of evolution. However, in addition to suicidal behaviour of semelparous species (not handled by the classical ageing theories) other apparently individually adverse organism characteristics such as altruism and sexual reproduction were observed. In response to these other conflicts, adjustments to classical theory were proposed:
- Various group selection theories (beginning in 1962) propose that benefit to a group could offset the individually adverse nature of a characteristic such as altruism. The same principle could be applied to characteristics that limited life span and theories proposing group benefits for limited life spans appeared.
- Evolvability theories (beginning in 1995) suggest that a characteristic that increased an organism's ability to evolve could also offset an individual disadvantage and thus be evolved and retained. Multiple evolvability benefits of a limited life span were subsequently proposed in addition to those originally proposed by Weismann.
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