Login |
Michael Rose on Biological Immortality
publication date: Dec 13, 2010
|
author/source: Arthur De Vany
Michael's talk is here. He is arguing that you could stop aging by adopting a Paleo lifestyle after age 40. This coincides almost exactly with what I did; I began this experiment of mine at the age of 47. I wish I had done it earlier, but who knew any of the things we know now? Michael and I were both on the faculty at UCI, but I never met him. There is a long, shallow portion of the survival curve that I do feel I have been drifting along on for some 30 years now. It seems that around 40 years, the extended juvenile period that human primates enjoy starts to run down a bit and we enter the phase of gene expression that is more characteristic of the primate genome. We humans are juvenile versions of primates, with a much extended juvenile period. But, it must end sometime and apparently does around 40. During this latter phase, we begin to express a more primate pattern so living a Paleo lifestyle at that time may be more consistent with that more primate pattern. Recall Aldous Huxley's novel After Many a Summer Dies the Swan. "In Huxley's novel, California millionaire Jo Stoyte learns of an English nobleman who discovered a way to vastly extend the human life span. Stoyte travels to England and finds the nobleman still alive, but he has devolved into an apelike creature." This is from Amazon since I have not read the novel. But, Aldous was grandson to Thomas Huxley, the biologist called Darwin's Bulldog for his vigorous defense of the theory of evolution. At some age, we do express more primate features, the craggy brow and altered posture and probably a more primate skeleton in terms of hip structure with its ensuing back problems in old age. I think our behavior also becomes less social and less flexible. Even our failing memory may just be an expression of a more primate brain that has less capacity. This may be a suitable basis for a more evolutionary theory of aging that could lead to a new approach to the problem. It is said that we revert to infancy, but I don't think so. We revert to the extended expression of primate genes that have been suppressed. So, we do become more ape-like, not more human infant-like. If we lived long enough we would express our inner fish. This is all controlled in the HOX genes that run the development program of all animals and fish. See Shubin's wonderful book Your Inner Fish. So, I may be the first empirical test of Rose's theory. I am certainly doing well. Now, where did I put my banana? |