Surely that’s not what you want with evolution.

**Mutations are the fundamental cause of aging** (Kudlow, B.A., Kennedy, B.K. and Monnat, R.J. Jr, Werner and Hutchinson–Gilford progeria syndromes: mechanistic basis of human progeroid diseases, Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 8:394–404, 2007.)

**they are also the fundamental cause of cancer** (Eccleston, A. and Dhand, R., Signaling in cancer, Nature 441(7092):423, 2006)

So, first of all

That’s a mechanism of aging, it’s not the only one

**And infectious diseases** Casanova, J-L. and Abel, L., Human genetics of infectious diseases: a unified theory, The EMBO Journal 26:915–922, 2007

But yes what you’re saying is generally true

Selective pressure keeps it in line

There are a lot of sexual selection adaptations that are acted on by that pressure

Ah yes, selective pressure.

Of course you bring that up

...yes

Let’s hear it, what’s your argument against selective pressure

Sure, just a minute

I’m grabbing citations

You don’t need citations

Just talk to me like a normal person

I agreed with everything you said earlier, you didn’t need any of those citations

Wait wait wait, no citations?

If I challenge something then go ahead and provide a citation

This is going to be easier then I though

You don’t need to back up information that we both agree is true

So let’s hear it

@Sophie Selective pressure does weed out less fit creatures, although the animals it doesn’t weed out would have to have super power genetics every single time in order to reach the place we are today

K.

So selective pressure makes sure that detrimentally disadvantageous mutations are removed from the gene pool

Well, the gene pool is a whole different thing

Howso?

Because the gene pool would need instructions to begin with

...what?

I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean

The gene pool is just all the genes that exist within a breeding population

Ah, ok. We were thinking of different things.

We’re assuming the genes already have the basic instructions of survival?

Right?

No?

(Which is already a big assumption)

Only genes that survive

It’s not an assumption, it’s necessarily the case

You are alive, therefore your genes have the instructions for survival

Whatever that means