Talk:Evolution of ageing

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A summary of this article appears in Death.
A summary of this article appears in Immortality.

Contents

[edit] Graph

This paper http://www.ucihs.uci.edu/biochem/steele/PDFs/Hydra_senescence_paper.pdf has a graph showing age of first reproduction vs lifetime that we might want to reproduce in some way. — Omegatron 22:46, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling?

Is the British English spelling "ageing?" The correct American spelling is "aging." 128.101.207.39 08:55, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Richard001 00:09, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The first sentence in the article uses the American spelling. Should that be changed to the British version if that's the way the title is going to be? How are we supposed to keep this consistent? This is a common problem I've noticed on Wikipedia... damn two different types of English speakers. Quixoto 19:01, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I went through the whole thing and changed all spellings to ageing some months ago, but the journal articles still mainly use 'aging' since they're mostly American, and I don't want to change the title of the articles just because of spelling differences. The spelling you're talking about here was just an anon 'correcting' the spelling, albeit to make it inconsistent with the article title. I've left a message about our policies on different spelling systems on their talk page. If anyone else changes the spelling just revert it and do the same. Richard001 00:09, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
I changed all occurrences of "aging" back to "ageing" (since the title of the article contains "ageing") except for the occurrences that occurred within titles in the references, since it's Wikipedia's policy not to change spellings in titles and quotations if I understood it correctly. ::Travis Evans 11:07, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Why originally go to the trouble of changing to match the title when it's clear from all of the earliest edits that the spelling was "Aging" and someone moved the article to "Ageing" without discussion or comment?Zebulin (talk) 05:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
There are more than two variants of English spelling.  :-) Here's the way we handle it: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English — Omegatron 00:30, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] problem?

It says "almost" all things.. If I am not mistaken, ALL things DO die. Not "almost all." Anyone else agree?

They will eventually, but with the simpler organisms you don't see senescence like you do with say a mammal. Spores can even tolerate extreme conditions. It doesn't mean that they are invincible, but they don't die in an inevitable way either. Richard001 01:53, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Links

I don't believe the article " The evolutionary Biology of Aging" is written by Alex Comfort. If you follow the link it appears that the quote at the top of the page is written by him but, the article is presumably written by the web site owner João Pedro de Magalhães. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.140.46 (talk) 21:40, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

The explanation that aging/dying cannot be evolutionarily advantageous is obviously incorrect. You do have to feed every member of a community for them survive. If no one ever died, and kept reproducing (as the author suggests), then the population would be uncontrollable. So, it is advantageous if people eventually die. And, it is advantageous if unfit individuals produce fewer offspring.

[edit] Wording

I made this edit [1] to try and improve the wording. The previous wording used terms like purpose and design in an evolutionary context but these words although not uncomming, are best avoided particularly in an encylopaedia intended for the layperson as they are confusing and can easily lead or contribute to misconceptions about evolution and teleological thinking. Traits may arise because they confer an evolutionary advantage but there is no evolutionary purpose and evolution doesn't really 'design' Nil Einne (talk) 19:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm tagging a section as having weasel words, though I will leave it to editors more familiar with the material to do the rewriting.
Interesting article; I believe there is enough discussion and citation of theories to show that the article is not OR, but some of he writing is unencyclopedic and POV. Changing the OR tag to Cleanup tag, redating it May 2008. I'll also find a way to link the article from Immortality, as it looks highly relevant to the issue. —Yamara ✉ 01:09, 24 May 2008 (UTC)