The Evolution of Death?

I must admit to not having much experience in the Theory of Evolution vs Creationism arena, but a discussion with a 14 year old Bible Student of mine left this bizzare nugget of thought. I won't go into details of how we got to this question, but I will present the basic thought process behind it.

If Evolution has always utilized natural selection of one form or another, then has Death somehow evolved? What motivation is there in Natural Selection to encourage the End of Life when things like Immune Systems, the ability to Heal from injury, and Survival Instincts are all pointing to longevity and "eternal life"? Why hasn't Evolution managed to Overcome Death like it has the myriad challenges like Environment(extreme heat, cold or toxicity), or Motion (walk, run, swim, fly, slither, crawl, etc..), to name a few. Throughout all the stages of Evolution, Death seems to just be there. In contrast Creationism teaches that Death was not part of the original condition but came along as the result of exposure to corruption.

Like I stated, I am a novice in this area. But I would appreciate any help I can get on this subject. These Teens can really come up with some off the wall questions sometimes. I would like to hear opinion from all sides on this, so I can be prepared to discuss it with the class next week.

When someone can explain to me how evolution can result in life, then maybe I'll start thinking about how it can result in death! Until then,, I'm more comfortable believing the bible's explanation.

PCW

Evolution has overcome death through reproduction. When an organism dies, part of it still lives on: its DNA through offspring.

Well there are a few answers. First of all death is not capable of being overcome. Disease, predators, and limited rescources will always bring about death eventually. Evolution does in fact work to overcome them to a certain extent, that's the whole "survival of the fittest" thing, i.e. if I can run 2 MPH faster than other members of my species, I have less of a chance of getting killed by a predator. But eventually if my entire species can outrun the predator, the predator dies off (let's say for the point of the argument I am it's main food scource), my species grows exponentially consumes all of the available rescources and subsequently die off. However, ususually as one species evolves something else evolves with it, I may be able to run faster than my predators for a bit, but it's likely that eventually a predator is going to be able to run as fast as me.

If you are talking about life spans, i.e. insects that naturally only live a couple days, you have to remember that evolution is about reproduction, not life span. As with the above example, let's say that I am not vunerable to preadators or disease, I still need rescources like food and water. For a while my species will grow exponentially, after all, nothing is inhibiting my growth. Eventually growth will stop and a sharp decline in population will begin, because at some point all the rescources will be used up, and possibly end up with the extinction of my species. If there is a natural lifespan, using up all the rescources is less likely, kinda like an built in population control mechanism. Well, the overpopulation will still occur, but not as quickly.

An issue like this had happened with deer in the US, I forget exactly where. Humans had killed off all the natural predators of the deer in the region, and disease was not a big issue. They banned the hunting of these deer because they thought the population was getting too low. For several years the population grew rapidly, and suddenly took a nose dive, because there were so many of them that they ate all the accessible food. Luckily enough the poplulation recovered, but the region that they were in began hunting again to keep the deer population from becoming over populated again like that.

I think you mean abiogenesis, not evolution.

__________________
If we are going to teach 'creation science' as an alternative to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as an alternative to biological reproduction. ~Judith Hayes, In God We Trust: But Which One?

"Be happy noble heart... And now the God of vengeance yields to me his power."

Just remember, you are unique, just like everybody else.

I think the answer to this would be no, death did not evolve. It has always been there and goes hand in hand with life. As living organisms can be destroyed/disabled by various 'unnatural' mechanisms (by which I mean anything other than simple old age) there would be no major benifit from people being theoretically able to live forever as they would still eventually die or be rendered useless from some unnatural cause.

Evolution doesn't have a specific motive, nor does it technically seek out the best mutations. What happens is this: Out of a gene pool a mutation arrises. If this mutation is passed on successfully chances are it will get integrated into the gene pool.
Natural selection comes in as a determining factor for what genes make it into the gene pool. If the gene helps the creature survive and reproduce, then it will be naturally selected.

What you are talking about seems more relative towards "intelligent design", where there is some sort of thought process that goes into which mutations are kept and some mutations are totally a result of a magic spark (IIRC).

__________________
If we are going to teach 'creation science' as an alternative to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as an alternative to biological reproduction. ~Judith Hayes, In God We Trust: But Which One?

"Be happy noble heart... And now the God of vengeance yields to me his power."

Just remember, you are unique, just like everybody else.

No, I meant evolution.

the real meat of the matter has been comparing Creationism and Evolution point for point, but Creationism has an explanation on the Origin of Death, but I can't think of where or how Evolution addresses the Origin of death in their Teachings. This descrepancy has sparked an interest with the class and as Teenagers are notoriously creative in their questions, I though I would seek to enlighten myself on the Alternate Viewpoints, before next weekend.

Wow, thanks for all the responses so far, they have been enlightening (especially yours Trunks2k ). The counter-point of reproduction and the continuation of the DNA fits nicely into the debate - why it never occurred to me, I don't know.