Immortality and more in reader feedback
Limiting life
Dying early may provide an evolutionary advantage. New simulations that pitted short-lived organisms against immortals found that mortals leave more resources behind for future generations, Andrew Grant reported in “Evolution may favor limited life span” (SN: 7/11/15, p. 6).
“How would the childbearing propensity of immortals change compared to mortals, and how would that affect the outcome of the simulation?” asked reader Mike Van Horn.
In general, immortals in the simulation evolved to have a much lower reproduction rate than mortals, says study coauthor Yaneer Bar-Yam of the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, Mass. By limiting the number of offspring, immortals prevented overpopulation and loss of resources. Mortals, on the other hand, reduced their number of offspring by limiting life spans. Mortals seemed to have the better strategy, since they won out over immortals in the long run.