Tag Archives: Michael Rose 55 Theses

Thesis #6

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #6 Natural selection produces good health only when new deleterious mutations are rare or small in magnitude; very few novel mutations will have large and generally beneficial effects, in an environment to which a population is well-adapted. Mutation is … Continue reading →

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Thesis #8

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #8 This complex genomic foundation for adaptation in turn produces a still more complex network of interacting molecules that sustain survival, health, fertility, and function. Arising from the genetic complexity of healthy function is a still more complex set … Continue reading →

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Thesis #9

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #9 The forces of natural selection weaken with adult age in species that have distinguishable adults and no fissile reproduction. We now face the prospect of developing a 21st Century biology based on formal, mathematical, and computational tools.  It … Continue reading →

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Thesis #10

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #10 When the forces of natural selection weaken with adult age, declining survival and fertility evolve in adulthood, and thus produce the decline in health which is commonly called ‘aging.’ In animals like mammals and insects, the Force of … Continue reading →

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Thesis 12

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #12 – Aging is a pattern of declining or de-tuned adaptation that is correlated with adult age only because adult age is at first strongly correlated with declining forces of natural selection. We have all seen sunrise and sunset.  … Continue reading →

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Thesis 13

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #13 – The declining forces of natural selection lead to an evolutionary failure to establish the genomic information required for tuning the complex networks of life well enough to provide a high level of health indefinitely; there is no … Continue reading →

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Thesis 14

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis # 14 – Aging hypotheses based solely on supposed universal imperfections of molecular, cell, or organismal physiology are wholly falsified by the existence of biological species that do not exhibit falling average rates of survival and reproduction among large cohorts … Continue reading →

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Thesis 15

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis # 15 – Aging evolves because of the previously adduced evolutionary genetic limitations to the forces of natural selection, which are affected by physiology, but aging is nonetheless not a merely physiological process.  Do the last five theses imply that … Continue reading →

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Thesis 17

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #17 – When such trade-offs arise from antagonistic pleiotropic effects of genetic variants, they sometimes maintain genetic variation for functional characters, and thus selectable genetic variation for patterns of aging. There are two kinds of trade-off which are important to … Continue reading →

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Thesis 18

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #18 – When such trade-offs can be physiologically tuned within the lives of individual organisms, natural selection may act to produce physiological machinery that provides plasticity which enhances average fitness. One of the basic features of natural selection is its … Continue reading →

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Thesis 19

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #19 – Such adaptive life-history plasticity will sometimes produce detectable trade-offs between survival and reproduction in the range of environmental conditions that prevailed when natural selection established such life-history plasticity. It is a general, though not universal, rule that, if … Continue reading →

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Thesis 20

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #20 – A single pharmaceutical or nutritional substance will never cure aging, for aging is not a simple physiological disease or dysfunction, but the de-tuning of adaptation with adult age. The quest for a substance that might arrest aging, … Continue reading →

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Thesis 21

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #21 – Multiple pharmaceutical substances or nutritional supplements will only ameliorate aging to the extent that they achieve genome-wide tuning similar to that which natural selection achieves when its forces are strengthened at later ages. So how best to … Continue reading →

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Thesis 22

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #22 – Repairing molecular or cellular damage will provide at most partial amelioration for the problem of de-tuned adaptation with adult age, because cumulative damage will also occur at organ and systemic levels at every physiological level as a … Continue reading →

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Thesis 23

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #23 – Repairing all types of cumulative damage during the aging phase will provide at most partial amelioration for the problem of declining adaptation with age, because some of this decline will be due to failures of signaling and other features … Continue reading →

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Thesis 24

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #24 – Altering all cell-molecular regulatory signaling during the aging phase will provide at most partial amelioration for the problem of declining adaptation, because dysfunctional signaling will also arise at organ and systemic levels as a result of the … Continue reading →

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Thesis 25

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #25 – Repairing all forms of cumulative damage and altering all types of regulatory signaling during the aging phase will also fail to fully alleviate aging, because some features of aging will arise from the absence of structural gene-products … Continue reading →

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Thesis 26

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #26 – The forces of natural selection can be strengthened during adulthood by postponing the first age at which they begin to decline, which can be achieved for the force of natural selection acting on age-specific mortality by postponing … Continue reading →

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Thesis 27

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #27 – Among populations which have had their forces of natural selection strengthened experimentally, detectable improvements in adult survival and reproduction have been observably achieved within dozens of generations. So there I am, in 1977, realizing that all evolution … Continue reading →

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Thesis 28

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #28 – Among such experimental populations evolving greater levels of adaptation at later adult ages, evolutionary changes in (a) structural gene frequency, (b) gene regulation, (c) patterns of cumulative damage, and (d) still other features of physiological function will … Continue reading →

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Thesis 29

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #29 – Species with fully symmetrical fission as the sole means of reproduction do not have a declining force of natural selection acting on survival, and they do not evolve aging phases in which all individuals show declining survival. … Continue reading →

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Thesis 30

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #30 – The forces of natural selection plateau at zero values at very late adult ages, and do not decline further for all subsequent ages. This is the most important thing of all, even if no one understood what … Continue reading →

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Thesis 31

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #31 – After the forces of natural selection plateau, it is possible for survival and reproduction to plateau at positive values due to age-independent beneficial effects of some genetic variants. As with modern physics, again, it is often difficult … Continue reading →

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Thesis 34

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #35 – Severe antagonistic pleiotropy can cause the evolution of zero late-adult survival probability even under ideal conditions, when genetic trade-offs between early reproduction and subsequent adult survival are sufficiently strong. Not all organisms have three phases to their … Continue reading →

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Thesis 35

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #35 – The ages at which the forces of natural selection plateau depend on the last ages of reproduction and survival in the evolutionary history of a population, allowing experimental evolution of the cessation of aging by deliberately changing … Continue reading →

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Thesis 36

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #36 – Experimental populations which have evolved different time-points for the cessation of aging can be used to uncover the biological foundations that determine the timing of the cessation of aging. During the 1980s and 1990s, my laboratory devoted … Continue reading →

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Thesis 38

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #38 – Some environmentally-induced variation in patterns of aging reflects the impact of selectively-favored patterns of life-history plasticity, but some environmental variation in aging does not reflect adaptive plasticity, such as that due to novel environments. An important distinction … Continue reading →

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Thesis 39

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #39 –  Patterns of adaptation are jointly determined by long-antecedent evolutionary patterns of natural selection, mutation, and inbreeding, as well as the immediate impact of environmental manipulation. In studying the aging phase and other patterns of adaptation in an … Continue reading →

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Thesis 40

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #40 – Experimental strategies for the study of aging that involve the introduction of novel mutations or increased levels of inbreeding will systematically impair the scientific study of aging, as they degrade and disrupt adaptation generally. At this point, … Continue reading →

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Thesis 41

Posted on March 18, 2011 by robpatrob

Thesis #41 – Experimental strategies for the study of aging that involve the use of environments that are evolutionarily novel will systematically impair the scientific study of aging, as natural selection will not have previously fostered adaptation to such novel … Continue reading →

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