[ajmarcic]

Elders' need for care may have burdened the success of their living descendants. In this sense we may have evolved to die.

A counterargument is that past generations lived too rarely to the point of natural death ("Intrinsic senescence") to experience selective pressure. I feel the burden of proof is in showing this.

An interesting discussion is whether or how an encoded trait that's negatively selected for is different than one that was never factored into the equation.