• dev_null@lemmy.ml
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    4 days ago

    Hmm, why can’t there be evolution without death? As long as organisms reproduce, genes are passed on, and some reproduce more successfully than others, why would it matter if existing individuals stay around or not? I don’t see how it makes evolution fundamentally impossible.

    • potoooooooo ✅️@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      So we could go visit our great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents and they’d look like Jabba the Hutt. Holidays would be a beast.

    • dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 days ago

      death is what paves the way for change. Old ideas literally die out, since the dawn of time. The passing of strategy and technique happens in even single celled organisms

      • dev_null@lemmy.ml
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        3 days ago

        That is indeed what happens, and it is helpful. But I disagree evolution wouldn’t happen without it.

        • dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 days ago

          the laws of thermodynamics though, you eventually die. You eventually spend resources, you eventually have to obtain more, etc. Unless you are perfect, you may be killed unless you know your environment perfectly, no?

          • dev_null@lemmy.ml
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            2 days ago

            Yeah, but that’s an argument against being able to live forever, not an argument against evolution being able to happen, if you did.