why we are living longer stanley shostak the evolution of death THE EVOLUTION OF DEATH SUNY Series in Philosophy and Biology David Edward Shaner, editor the evolution of death why we are living longer stanley shostak STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2006 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, address State University of New York Press, 194 Washington Avenue, Suite 305, Albany, NY 12210-2384 Production by Marilyn P. Semerad Marketing by Susan M. Petrie Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Shostak, Stanley. The evolution of death : why we are living longer / Stanley Shostak. p. ; cm. — (SUNY series in philosophy and biology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-7914-6945-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-7914-6945-X (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-7914-6946-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-7914-6946-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Death. 2. Aging. 3. Life expectancy. [DNLM: 1. Death. 2. Aging. 3. Evolution. 4. Life Expectancy—trends. WT 116 S559e 2006] I. Title. II. Series. QP87.S43 2006 613.2—dc22 2005037275 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To A. B. and G. P. This page intentionally left blank. Contents List of Illustrations ix Preface xi Introduction: Death the Mystery 1 Part I. How Biology Makes Sense of Death 5 1. Evolution: Death’s Unifying Principle 7 Death Evolves! 7 False Clues: Where Science Got It Wrong 9 In Sum 39 2. Charting Death’s Evolution and Life’s Extension 41 Measuring Death’s Evolution: Empirical Evidence 42 Modeling the Evolution of Lifetimes 48 Accommodating Increased Longevity 51 In Sum 55 3. Rethinking Lifecycles and Arrows 57 Life as a Cycle: Lifecycles Connect Life to Life 58 Adaptations to Lifecycles 71 The Linear View of Life: Life’s Arrow 75 What Is Wrong with the Weismann/Haeckel Doctrine79 In Sum 85 4. Keeping Life Afloat 89 Why Is Life So Profligate? 90 Gambling on Life: Death against the Odds 95 vii Improving Profit Margins 100 In Sum 104 Part II. How Death Evolves and Where It Is Heading 105 5. Putting Cells in the Picture 107 Cellular Theories of Life and Death 107 The Cell’s Role in Growth and Development 109 The Cell’s Role in Maintenance and Regeneration of Adult Tissues 112 The Cell’s Role in Death 117 The Cell’s Potential Role in Regeneration Therapy 121 In Sum 130 6. Neoteny and Longevity 133 The Time Is Out of Joint 134 Juvenile Life Expectancy Spreads Upward 136 Neoteny and the Germ Line 142 Fecundity Is Decreasing 144 In Sum 148 Afterword 151 How Death’s Evolution Escaped the Gerontologist’s Notice 152 Where Will Death’s Evolution Take Us? 156 Appendix: Different Forms of Life and Death 161 Notes 173 Glossary 197 Bibliography 205 Index 235 viii CONTENTS Illustrations Figure 1.1 Survivorship distributions for comparable life spans 13 Figure 1.2 Partial disease profile for the seven stages of a lifetime 39 Figure 2.1 Death rates by age and sex in the United States, 1955–1999 44 Figure 2.2 Percentage change in death rates and age-adjusted death rates between 1998 and 1999 by age, race, and sex, in the United States 45 Figure 2.3 Life expectancy by sex in the United States, 1970–1999 47 Figure 2.4 Life span model 50 Figure 2.5 Life span model in action 50 Figure 2.6 The accordion model 52 Figure 2.7 The bagpipe model 53 Figure 3.1 A lifecycle, as proposed by Thomas Huxley 58 Figure 3.2 Death’s role in a lifecycle 62 Figure 3.3 The Eukaryotic lifecycle as waves 64 Figure 3.4 Stages of a life span 67 Figure 3.5 Weismann’s divide 76 Figure 3.6 Numbers of precursors, oocytes, and spermatozoa in Homo sapiens 85 Figure 4.1 Total deaths in Singapore, 1991–2000 96 Figure 4.2 Infant mortality rates in Singapore, 1991–2000 97 Figure 4.3 Life expectancy as a function of age 98 ix [...]... the center of the bell), while small variations expressed among members of a population and the chance of the draw explained the error or scatter of points around the mean (the area beneath the bell on either side of the mean) The mean and scatter, in terms of the standard deviation of the mean, provided a basis for describing and comparing distributions, but in the early days, attempts to define the. .. with the greatest longevity should be the offspring of long-lived or “longevous” parents and the parents of longevous progeny Karl Pearson and Miss Beeton (sic) performed the first test of this hypothesis using the technique now known as meta-analysis Together they gleaned data from published records of the peerage, the landed gentry These data covered the ages of fathers and sons at death and brothers... selection together with literary and mathematical eloquence in a new synthesis, followed by Theodosius Gregorievitch Dobzhansky’s New World” synthesis or “synthetic theory” of evolution, and Julian Huxley’s “modern synthesis,” launching the reign of still-fashionable neo-Darwinism Darwinian evolution was thus rescued from the junk heap of unproven hypotheses, but at the same time, the study of heredity... mold: we die because living things have always died.4 Thus, we die at the behest of statistics, of a species’ finite life span, of killer genes, killer environments, or entropy and the laws of thermodynamics But do we? Chapter 1 examines the objectivity of these scientific truths Several questions are raised in the form of “Do we die at the whim (command, behest) of ?” But to all these questions, the. .. polemic on the necessity for appropriation and uneven distribution of wealth, a diatribe against Mr Pitt’s Poor Laws, the parish system, and enclosure of the commons, and a mocking critique of notions of physical immortality) argued “that the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man,” and “in no state that we have yet known has the power of population... that waste less of life’s precious material than in the past Death thus feeds back onto life, turning the body into a corpse only after life is exhausted Because evolution supplies new and improved models of death, life is becoming longer, fuller, and healthier The Evolution of Death traces these improvements in death to changes in the life cycle: by lubricating life’s cycle, death greases the way to better... die out while living in their different environments and making their living in different ways The conjunction of the surviving number of organisms in a cohort (along the Y axis) and the period of time (along the X axis) until the last member of the cohort is dead is plotted in a survivorship distribution In the distributions shown in figure 1.1, the time axis is calibrated in fractions of a life span... SENSE OF DEATH making a comeback,34 but those who might have argued in favor of purely environmental determinants of life have long since been drummed out of the profession.) Of course, a great deal of the debate between members of the two camps hinges on exactly what one means by genes, but the definition of genes has only become more confused and controversial with the passage of time For twentieth... the chance of dying by roughly 32 fold”?4 WHY DO WE DIE? All these questions smack of mystery, and many mystifying answers have been proposed over the millennia Some answers, while not incontrovertible and definitive, seem to serve one purpose or another Answers may take the 1 2 INTRODUCTION: DEATH THE MYSTERY form of myths and serve a variety of cultural functions, although they do not deal with death. .. bend over backwards to make the case for the departure of a soul as the material cause of death Let us imagine that the Grim Reaper, Angel of Death, Avenging Angel, or Winged Chariot is really an effector of the material transformation of body to corpse Thus, as the effector liberates or takes possession of the soul, the body turns into a purely material corpse on the verge of returning to dust.6 Is . why we are living longer stanley shostak the evolution of death THE EVOLUTION OF DEATH SUNY Series in Philosophy and Biology David Edward Shaner, editor the evolution of death why we are living. living longer stanley shostak STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2006 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United. of death, life is becoming longer, fuller, and healthier. The Evolution of Death traces these improvements in death to changes in the life cycle: by lubricating life’s cycle, death greases the