RIP George Clarkson

[ramtrumpet]

George Clarkson was my step great uncle who I saw once a year at Thanksgiving. However, despite not being very close, in his death he is kind of an inspiration for me. I have never met anyone before who has accepted death like him. He has been sick with cancer and bed-ridden for weeks. Despite this, he requested on Christmas day that he be

Comments

[saxycatcher]

Sorry to hear about your step great-uncle. Sounds like he was an admirable guy, from the way you talk about him.

And I'll take a stab at the science, too. If we lost the ability to age, we should probably also lose the ability to reproduce. If we didn't age and we didn't die, that would work against us - overcrowding, overpopulation becomes a drain on resources and many of us would starve. Also, I'm thinking aging isn't a part of our genetic code so much as it is a part of our bodies' inability to function over time. Our heart is a muscle - eventually, it may wear out. Tissue and bone become weaker over time due to wear and tear. It's not that we as a species can choose whether or not to leave ourselves open to this; it's that a perfect cell that never dies cannot exist for the good of its species, if we apply the evolutionary standpoint to it (yay for evolution!). If it did not die, in addition to overpopulation, another problem the species would face is a lack of advancements. When I visit MIT, I'll try to get a more correct answer for ya.

Jess