You misunderstood my point. While most damage is bad, the damages (mutations) that are neutral or positive are conserved, selected in the population, and thus can be said to be a product of evolution. I admit it's oversimplification but you need to see that damage to a germline is what drives change in every single organism.
Also, you should read up on DNA repair mechanisms. It's unrelated, but in fact repair can and does happen "that" quickly and is very neat.
Ah, but the cells are accumulating damage. It's called "mutation."
What prevents the damage from having an overall negative effect is evolution.
The difference here is that ageing cells in a mouse are not subjected to selective pressure (excluding cells of the immune system), whereas organisms in a population are.
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You misunderstood my point. While most damage is bad, the damages (mutations) that are neutral or positive are conserved, selected in the population, and thus can be said to be a product of evolution. I admit it's oversimplification but you need to see that damage to a germline is what drives change in every single organism. Also, you should read up on DNA repair mechanisms. It's unrelated, but in fact repair can and does happen "that" quickly and is very neat.
Ah, but the cells are accumulating damage. It's called "mutation." What prevents the damage from having an overall negative effect is evolution. The difference here is that ageing cells in a mouse are not subjected to selective pressure (excluding cells of the immune system), whereas organisms in a population are.