The evolution of Adam - The biological purpose of death.
Last week I asked the question of if there was death before Adam.
I got many great and varied responses.
Some where dismissive of the whole Eden story, seeing it simply as a fairy-tale or fiction.
Others saw much of metaphor in the Eden account while for others it was a real head scratcher.
Still others hold dogmatically to the idea that Adam was the first to introduce death into the world and that anything (meaning the eaten fruit) that transpired before that was magically or miraculously taken care of.
So here are a couple of my thoughts, but before that a little look at what the biological purpose of death is.
If a population is able to reproduce then their numbers increase. If numbers continue to increase unabated then soon a population will run out of the resources required to sustain life. Death is the necessary mechanism to maintain a balance of resources.
Death is an absolute biological necessity.
Lets take for instance the simple example of how many rats you get from one pair in one year. If you start with a pair, then each female reproduces 10 babies every 2 months
Let's assume 50% of the babies are female.
- After 2 months- 6 males, 6 females.
- After 4 months- 36 males, 36 females.
- After 6 months- 216 males, 216 females.
- After 8 months- 1296 males, 1296 females.
- After 10 months- 7776 males, 7776 females.
- After 12 months- 46656 males, 46656 females.
93 312 rats, assuming that none of them die.
By three years that's close to half a billion rats... just from one pair.
Now just imagine the numbers when we start to consider some fish or amphibians that produce millions of eggs per spawning.
Some insects are so prolific and their reproductive cycles are so much shorter, that if some of them were to reproduce unchecked and none were to die - forget about food for them, they would cover the entire planet in a layer composed entirely of themselves a few meters thick, within a year.
Then, we haven't even begun to think of bacteria, whose reproductive cycles are measured in hours and minutes. They may be microscopic but they still account for the largest amount of biomass on the planet. They are even found kilometers deep under the ground gnawing away at solid rocks.
If bacteria reproduced unabated the entire planet would be overwhelmed pretty rapidly.
Simply, from a Darwinian perspective, the purpose of an organism is to be born, reproduce some offspring that are slight variations of themselves and then exit the scene as quickly as possible.
This is to cut down the amount of competition for resources between parents and the next generation. The faster the cycle can repeat itself, the faster the environment will select for better adaptions and the species will evolve.
The smallest, simplest and most prolific organisms evolve the fastest. That is why, in one bacterial infection, if a person does not complete the course of antibiotic medicines they are given, a drug resistant strain may emerge.
The case of the common cold virus is evolution in action.
It's in an evolutionary arms race against the human immune system, and every year a new strain or two must emerges that the human immune system hasn't seen before, because if it doesn't adapt it will die out due to the fact that once a person has had that strain of the flu, they become immune to it going forward.
So simply put, if Adam was immortal in the garden of Eden along with the rest of the animals there that could not have been the intended end state.
Eden was of limited geographical extent with finite resources.
It was, after all eastward of something else.
What was going on outside of Eden? and if Adam and eve were able to reproduce before becoming mortal and were in fact to stay immortal and produce immortal offspring even if Eden was the entire planet it would have become pretty crowded pretty quickly.
By now there would not have even been standing room left...
Previous parts of this Series.
Were the seven days of creation in Genesis seven twenty four hour periods? - Delving a little deeper
Were the seven days of creation in Genesis seven twenty four hour periods? - Into the detail
Were the seven days of creation in Genesis seven twenty four hour periods? - Some conclusions
Were the seven days of creation in Genesis seven twenty four hour periods? - Some more conclusions
Were the seven days of creation in Genesis seven twenty four hour periods? - The implications.
The evolution of Adam - a conundrum
The evolution of Adam - Who is Adam
The evolution of Adam - Two trees and choice
The evolution of Adam - Partaking of the fruit and feeling naked
Some time ago I wrote an article about one of the biological reasons why we have to die.
There I also pointed out that the concept to die and give ones genes to the next generation most of the time seems to be superior in evolution compared to the concept of immortality (which actually exists as well). The reason for that is that it allows to adapt more easily to a changing environment according to the motto "we age because the world changes" - also computer simulations seem to confirm that.
Wow! It is very amazing!
When does one consider this great universe we supposedly have out there?
(Stories from government agencies and privately owned companies about voyages and orbiting satellites, space missions, etc..)
Assuming "overpopulation" was the cause for creating death..
What about the fact that we haven't truly overpopulated this planet yet?..
Not even close.. (With the consideration that others' greed is the only thing preventing all these families and places from being more inhabited.)
So if death is to keep us from overpopulating.. Why is there such a vast universe out there? To expand into.. To break through "limits" to reach.. To forever explore.. To learn to inhabit..
That's the only real question I have when it comes to this. I don't claim to know much about religion or the bible or any of that, as I'm agnostic.. I believe that a book created by man will never and has never been "God's word" as it has been put through too many hands of men and we know the nature of men..
I do believe it's interesting to think about and discuss though! Very well-written post, keep the interesting content up, this is the type of stuff that's eye-opening and mind-expanding! Love it! :)
@kainmarx Yes, there is such a vast universe out there but as of the moment, people are still living in a planet called earth. We may haven't truly overpopulated this planet yet but we already abused our resources. We consume more than what we needed. If there is no death, just imagine what will earth looks like.
Have you seen Soylent Green? If you haven't, I highly recommend it. It was a 1973 film but the content of that film is evergreen. The movie shows how the earth looks like in the future and how overpopulated they are. In a week they are only given a gallon of water per person. It's an all around water so people no longer showers. Lakes, rivers, and the like no longer exists nor trees, grass, and flowers. I don't even remember seeing any other animals aside from rats. The only food they have is biscuits. There are a green, yellow, and red biscuits. People's favorites are the green biscuits. It was given to them freely by the government but after distributions bulldozer visits and take as many people as they can. Fast forward... a detective accidentally found out that his and other people's favorite green biscuits are made of humans.
yummy
I believe death had to be created so that no (human) evil could live forever.. So that no sin could truly continue to persist.. As in, those who wish to do bad, will eventually all have to die.. Leaving less bad and less negative in the world.. If we all worked together, raising new generations on ideals that could work.. We could potentially run sin out of the human bloodline.. Just a thought as well. :)
But @kainmarx, everyone dies. Even so-called good people.
The universe is great, of course.!
Infant mortality rates were very high in past millennia, remove that from the equation and you would have a vastly different scenario on this earth well before possible space travel.
Very good point there, what also comes to mind is why GOD will specifically Tell man to fill or populate the earth
I agree with you @gavvet, if all were immortal, then such planets as the Earth would need thousands, or even more :)
Life has to remain mysterious. So newborns will ask more questions.
If man will be immortal, then we won't have time to post on steemit because probably, what we'll be doing is just eat and sleep all day ^_^
agree
Every word is correct
@gavvet - An interesting question. I think some sort of destructive force (whether in the form of death or not) would have been essential to counter the force of creation. Balance has always been the key theme of the universe. Therefore, the concept of death may have been tagged on after the concept of mortality came along but recognition of the fact that some destructive force would have existed even before Adam is what I believe.
You have given a great example of the scenario that would get created if death was non-existent. I remember reading about the rabbits multiplying during my school days.
Thanks for this thought provoking article. Upvoted full.
Death is necessary I think and that is why the creator allowed it to exist.
yup
From what I can read in Genesis, there was no procreating of humans until we ate the forbidden fruit.
The first passage I saw mentioning bearing children is right when God is scolding them for eating the fruit and kicking them out of Eden. God tells Eve how now she will bear children and how Adam will have to earn from the sweat of his brow. (Genesis 3: 1-20)
Nice post @gavvet! Yeah I guess even I can't help but to ask the same question why death is needed to exist. When I was a kid, all I thought is because man committed sin but now when I look at it, if man will be immortal forever, then the Earth will not be big enough for us to fit in it. Even space will eventually be crowded.
You know, I just gotta say first, I just got back from a tiring day at work. I was pissed off on the way home because of the crowd in the buses and trains.
Then I came home to read this and instantly felt relief. Society is all work and stress, and reading these philosophical matters is a great break.
So thanks @gavvet.
Anyway, I can't really say much about the purpose of death except that we aren't supposed to perfectly know the purpose.
People like to say, "Things for a reason."
Well, sometimes that reason is that we aren't supposed to know the reason.
That's it. Death no matter what, will always be a mystery for every living person has not crossed over yet.
A lot scientific info to digest. Perhaps the creation story is just a metaphor. I don't know but I sure that Adam dying meant he was seperated from the source of life, which is God himself. And in christianity that's what death is really all about. In the book of revelations, it is refered to as the second death: eternal seperation from the creator and giver of life. Great work! Very insightful.
Interpreting this post as a kind of argument, I have the following to say:
First, you seem to be conflating death with aging. For instance, in your first several sections, you present an argument for why death is necessary. Let's say we grant you that: death is necessary. But then you go on to say that "This is to cut down the amount of competition for resources between parents and the next generation." Well here's a way to cut down on the competition: have the kids die.
I mean, there are organisms that, for all we know, are immortal. Whether you (a) keep on living, or (b) have two children that each share 50% of your DNA and then die, or (c) have one child that shares 100% of your DNA and then die, is all the same. So why pick the second way?
In other words, you haven't explained aging. You have explained death. But death can be achieved in a number of ways (a, b, c), parents dying (b) being just one of them.
Secondly, I think you may have put the cart before the horse. Animals reproduce more when they die more, they don't die more because they reproduce more. In other words, if elephants had a very successful predator that killed most of their offspring, or if they had rich food sources, then elephants would adjust by producing more offspring to offset the killing of the offspring by the predator, or to take advantage of the rich food sources.
Third, though this may be the second point reversed, if resources are scant, one possible adaptation is for nature to make the rats/bacteria/fish to produce less offspring, so there won't be as much competition between the offspring.
Fourth, you're treating death as some sort of force of nature, keeping numbers in check, but it's unclear how it works. To me it's just self-evidently true that no organism can grow beyond the environment's ability to sustain that growth. There's no need to bring death into the picture, it's more like a metaphor.
I think this is false. It sounds like teleology. I don't think creatures aim to evolve. I don't think mutations happen with foresight, or purpose. If the environment has been stable for a long time, cells that tend to make errors in copying themselves will disappear, since by definition all mutations will be less adaptive (since the environment is stable and we assume adaptation has reached a saturation point). So organisms will tend to produce very faithful versions of themselves. If on the other hand the environment changes often, then either cells making more errors will be favored, or else the same number of errors but more offspring (as in bacteria). But there's no need to talk of purposes: it no more serves an organism to produce variations of itself than it serves a warbler to raise a cuckoo.
Sure, the competition is decreased, but so are the chances of the species survival if the environment changes for the worst... that species will have less variety and potentially beneficial adaptations to survive radical change in environment.
So the question is, does natural selection favor the species that bets on one horse or many, which is more likely to be a successful strategy? It's not that the species picks it or plans it, its just the way selection works.
Strong selection environments will favor species that age and die once they have performed their reproductive duties unless there is some beneficial aspect of having them around for longer.
More complex and social species that provide added benefit will tend to live longer as a result because selection will favor lines that don't age and die as quickly if the survival benefit of being around longer is significant.
The purpose of the post was hardly intended to be an exhaustive discourse on evolutionary biology. The discussion was around how feasible immortality is given that reproduction is taking place....
Two questions that come up when evaluating the biblical account of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden before the fall.
The "argument" as you see it is hardly along the lines you are pursuing.
If I use the word "purpose" its simply for easier readability to a wider audience.
Correct, none do but those that do have a better chance of survival in a changing environment.
I understand now. We agree. I was just picking on the language I guess.
yip, agree we do, It's just a little semantics that got in the way, but thanks for the detailed engagement on the subject.
Hi gavvet!
Recently I wrote a post that kinda somewhat relates to our discussion here, in the sense that often metaphor gets mixed up with literal-talk. I basically have this idea that the survival/self-preservation instinct does not exist! I'm not gonna ask you to read my post cos it's overlong, but I would appreciate it if you read the much briefer comment here in response to a post by kyriakos, and if you'd kindly comment, either there, or here, or via DM (my handle is the same on steemit.chat), or whatever, I'd just like the opinion of someone who is versed in these things, and you seem to be a biologist, though I don't really know.
https://steemit.com/biology/@kyriacos/fixed-action-patterns-the-heart-and-soul-of-survival-instincts#@alexander.alexis/re-kyriacos-fixed-action-patterns-the-heart-and-soul-of-survival-instincts-20170922t095535069z