[tgv]

Because the whole system is quite resilient and self-repairing, and probably requires a great deal of consistency between the various genes? Aging is quite fundamental to life, and a "bug" in that area would almost certainly cause severe problems in other areas, probably death. Cancer might be an example. And systems of many components tend to narrow the standard deviation of the composite.

But that's just guessing. The article might not even have found something profound, but a life-style effect. On the one hand, we're living long (historically speaking), on the other hand, we have unnatural habits.

[rowanG077]

aging doesn't seem fundamental to life to me. There is known complex life that doesn't age. I expect age is a huge driver of evolution in many cases so it makes sense that most life has it.

[fc417fc802]

You have that backwards. In many cases aging hasn't noticably impeded evolution so it hasn't been selected against.

[rowanG077]

You misunderstood what I said. I'm saying not aging does clearly impede evolution. This is not some exotic idea, it's be brought forth before: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1558-5646....