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by grimgrin 3693 days ago
What would the "selfish gene" explanation for this be? The aging mechanism to avoid cancer due to death-before-cancer.
1 comments

The cell dies or stops working as effectively as before and is potentially replaced by other cells, but the organism lives. So overall, the cell's DNA is more likely to be transmitted.

If the cell lived (selfishly), it could take down the whole organism with it and not reproduce.