en lives beyond that amount adults need to
care for their young. Indeed, it may even favor offspring who do not
have to compete with living parents. Such competition could promote the
accumulation of genes that cause death. For example, after spawning, the
Mediterranean octopus (O. Hummelincki) promptly stops eating and
starves to death. If we remove a certain gland though, the octopus
continues to eat, and lives twice as long. Many other animals are
programmed to die soon after they cease reproducing. Exceptions to this
include those long-lived animals, like ourselves and the elephants, whose
progeny learn so much from the social transmission of accumulated
knowledge.

健康与长寿

这样一个未来世界不能藉由生理学知识来创建。近些年，人们学会了很多健康知识、如何保养的知识，人类还发明了上千种对付疾病与伤残的治疗方法，可似乎仍然没有让我们的寿命上限提高多少。富兰克林活了84岁，除非在传说和神话中，没有谁能活两个84岁。按照洛伊·瓦尔佛德（UCLA医学院病理学教授）的观点，在古罗马时期，人类的平均寿命是22岁，而在1900年的发达国家中大约是50岁，现在则是维持在75岁的水平。在最近的115年里，那些曲线基本没什么变化，数个世纪来无论人们对健康如何的关注和改善，都没有提高寿命的上限。为什么我们的寿命如此有限？答案很简单：自然选择对那些有大量子孙的基因有利，它们的数量会随着一代又一代的繁殖成指数级增长，这样也就对那些自我复制发生的早的基因有利，进化过程通常对那些活的时间太长以至于超过了照顾后代所需的数量的基因不利，的确，这对那些不必与父母竞争的儿女更加有好处，与父母竞争会使致死基因增加，所以自然界中的很多生物会在停止繁殖后不久死去。例如，产卵后，地中海章鱼会马上停止吃东西，以至于饿死。假如我们切除它身上的某种分泌腺，它就会不停的吃，体长变成2倍。也有一些长寿动物不同，比如我们人类自己和大象，他们的后代学了很多上代积累下来的、并在群体中传播开来的知识。

We humans appear to be the longest lived warm-blooded animals.
What selective pressure might have led to our present longevity which is
almost twice that of our other primate relatives? This is related to wisdom!
Among all mammals, our infants are the most poorly equipped to survive
by themselves. Perhaps we needed not only parents, but grandparents too,
to care for us and to pass on precious survival tips. Even with such
advice, there are many causes of mortality to which we might succumb.
Some deaths result from infections. Our immune systems have evolved
versatile ways to deal with most such diseases. Unhappily though, those
very same immune systems often injure us by treating various parts of
ourselves as though they, too, were infectious invaders. This blindness
leads to diseases such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis,
and many others.

人类似乎是寿命最长的恒温动物。人类现在的寿命比它的近亲灵长类高出2倍，这是为什么？因为人类拥有知识，包括生存知识，在所有哺乳动物中，人类婴儿的先天生存本领是最弱的，我们不但需要父母甚至还需要祖父母来一起照看我们，他们能传授我们宝贵的生存技巧。即使这样，仍然无法避免死亡，比如感

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