Why do we age?

607 views

Why do we age?

In: Biology

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Well aging is a bit of a human concept. This isn’t going to be the best answer.

Energy (and biological size) requirements means no animal can afford to carry an offspring to maturity in the womb (ie through pregnancy). So the offspring will be birthed pretty much as soon as it can have a reasonable chance to survive. Then it grows and matures independently.

At this point, there is another energy/evolutionary factor – it takes too much energy/complexity to keep an animal surviving long past where it can breed the next generation. Injuries, etc come into play and biologically it is too complex to have “infinite” regeneration potential while avoiding things like cancers etc. These are just the tradeoffs of biology.

So, as humans we call it “aging” but it is fairly natural. Obsolescence is a part of the outcome of evolution.

You are viewing 1 out of 3 answers, click here to view all answers.