[ouid]

I have two problems with your argument.

To start, I'm going to assume that, by defective, you mean unintentional, correct me if I'm wrong. This is equivalent to the assertion that there is no feasible mechanism to preventing your germ cells from accumulating damage due to age, because otherwise, if it was maladapative, AND evolution could design a mechanism for preventing it, it would have. It's been long enough since mammals started reproducing sexually.

This doesn't even make a little bit of sense though. It's clearly possible to keep the error rate constant. What's the difference between the germ cells in my body and the germ cells in my offspring's body. Why do those last longer?

As you grow older, your offspring have more genetic diversity. It seems like the accumulation of mutations is intentional for older parents. The more similar your children are, the more likely they are to compete with each other, and the older you are, the more children you are already likely to have. So I propose that this is not a defect, but rather by design.

Second, why on earth does this explain the hypothesis? Nerds are smarter on average, yes? Does it not make at least twice as much sense that smarter individuals are sexually attractive at older ages than athletic ones than reasoning that genetic defects are the thing that makes a person smart.

[haihaibye]

>> What's the difference between the germ cells in my body and the germ cells in my offspring's body. Why do those last longer?

Interesting question, I'm not sure but there is a selection mechanism with sperm creation, movement and implantation.

Ie your bad germline cells with too much damage don't make it to the next generation.

[ouid]

That's not a hard solution to replicate inside of a single organism. The fact that we haven't suggests that it isn't adaptive.

[haihaibye]

Naturally aborting a foetus due to genetic errors found in growth stagrs after combining with foreign DNA in your balls then shutting down the process and re-extract the germline cells is easy?

Why bother going to all that trouble when you can move the DNA to a new body and let the old one fall apart?

For it to have been worth it, a longer reproductive career has to pay off more than the opportunity cost of spending effort on other strategies eg aquiring more mates or investing more in your kids.

The most optimal balance is of course the DNA running around today.

[ouid]

I don't need to engineer the solution precisely, but the idea that it's impossible, or even difficult, to maintain the information degradation rate of mitosis, is clearly flawed. If your argument is that 'life has simply not found a way to do this yet', you should probably reconsider your argument.

[haihaibye]

My argument is that there are tradeoffs. There may be a way to do it but it has been thoroughly out competed by the make children and die strategy that dominates the planet.