I was recently introduced to evolutionary theories of aging in the book Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. See the "Aging" section of this lesswrong book review for an overview, or these wiki sections on antagonistic pleiotropy. The core concept is that there is selective pressure in favor of mutations which benefit an organism early in life but harms it late in life. This is because organisms die of other causes, so will have a lower chance of reaching the age where the mutation becomes harmful. A higher th... (read more)
I was recently introduced to evolutionary theories of aging in the book Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. See the "Aging" section of this lesswrong book review for an overview, or these wiki sections on antagonistic pleiotropy. The core concept is that there is selective pressure in favor of mutations which benefit an organism early in life but harms it late in life. This is because organisms die of other causes, so will have a lower chance of reaching the age where the mutation becomes harmful. A higher th... (read more)