Inevitable Aging? Contributions to Evolutionary-Demographic Theory
Honored by the Max Planck Society with the Otto Hahn Medal 2007 for outstanding scientific achievements Aging is inevitable: this is gerontological dogma. And humans do inevitably grow old, which is probably why it seems so unlikely to us that other forms
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Demographic Research Monographs E. Barbi, S. Bertino, E. Sonnino (Eds.) Inverse Projection Techniques 2004. XI, 137 pages. 978-3-540-20931-7 G. Doblhammer The Late Life Legacy of Very Early Life 2004. X, 204 pages. 978-3-540-22105-0 R. Rau Seasonality in Human Mortality 2007. XV, 214 pages. 978-3-540-44900-3
Annette Baudisch
Inevitable Aging? Contributions to Evolutionary-Demographic Theory
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Dr. Annette Baudisch Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research Konrad-Zuse-Straße 1 18057 Rostock Germany [email protected]
Printed with the financial support of the Max Planck Society ISBN 978-3540-76655-1
e-ISBN 978-3-540-76656-8
DOI 10.1007/978-3-540-76656-8 Demographic Research Monographs ISSN 1613-5520 Library of Congress Control Number: 2007940154 © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin, Heidelberg This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Production: LE-TEX Jelonek, Schmidt & Vöckler GbR, Leipzig Cover-design: WMX Design GmbH, Heidelberg The front cover photo – top right hand corner – includes a photograph by Harald Wenzel-Orf (www.wenzel-orf.de) and has been reproduced with his permission. Printed on acid-free paper 987654321 springer.com
To my family
Foreword
What is the ultimate cause of aging? Before Dr. Annette Baudisch began her research on this question, aging was thought to be fundamentally a consequence of the decline with age of the force of Darwinian selection. Only a fraction of individuals survive to older ages and only a fraction of their fertility remains. Consequently, deleterious mutations that act only at older ages will be purged so slowly over successive generations that such mutations will accumulate in the population. This implies that starting at the age of reproductive maturity death rates will begin to increase. As William D. Hamilton put it, ”senescence is an inevitable outcome of evolution.” This view was biological dogma for half a century – until Dr. Baudisch’s compelling critique and radical breakthrough, cogently explained in this monograph. Dr. Baudisch distinguishes between aging and senescence, defining aging as the pattern of change in mortality over age and senescence as an increase in mortality with age. She shows that for some species mortality goes down with age or stays c
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