Why Do Humans Age? Hint: Evolution Doesn’t Care If We Live Past 40

Human aging is framed as a result of weakening natural selection with age, not as a failure of evolution to prevent it.

The article highlights the mutation accumulation hypothesis: harmful mutations that act late in life can persist because they usually appear after reproduction.

Natural selection strongly removes traits that hurt survival before reproduction, but is much less effective against later-life problems.

This evolutionary tradeoff helps explain why aging persists and why late-onset diseases like Huntington’s are hard to eliminate.