Re: Immortality

From: Sandy Petersen <sandyp_at_idgecko.idsoftware.com>
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 95 12:17:08 -0600

Derek Cameron Smyk
>feasability of having a race (usually elves in our debates, but any
>race) that is immortal in the sense of not dying of old age. My
>friend argues that such a race would never reproduce, arguing
>that it is scientifically impossible for such a race to exist. I
>disagree. I feel that such a race could reproduce, however rarely,
>in order to replace those lost to accident or disease.

        Tell your friend that there are literally THOUSANDS of species on Earth that do not die of old age.

        Examples: lobsters, crocodiles, many species of fish, almost all protozoans and bacteria, etc.

        Dying of old age is extremely rare in the natural world. So rare that it can basically be ignored as a cause of death in many population studies. Animals need to reproduce because death is omnipresent -- disease, predators, weather, con-specific fighting all take their toll.

        Now, if an animal is very long-lived, hardy, and difficult to kill, then it normally will reproduce rather slowly. A good example is humanity. We are one of the slowest-reproducing critters in the world. A typical female produces maybe 10 kids in her lifetime, and each kid takes well over a decade to mature physically - -- then it usually takes several more years before they're able to function socially.

        Compare to the immortal lobster -- it spawns ten thousand eggs a year. During its lifetime, a given lobster might spawn a million young. Of all those young, on the average only two (2) survive to adulthood. So much for being immortal.

Sandy P.

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