But this formula can be applied to virtually all other species of animal by simply inserting the average life span and windows of sexual potency and competitiveness into the formula. I'll bet a bull moose, for instance, burns out and is replaced before his daughters are of age. Since there is an obvious genetic advantage to preventing cross-generational procreation and its ruinous genetic consequences, a strict limitation, I submit, was a necessity for both genetic integrity and even for evolution itself. Human cells, we now know, have a genetically imposed limit on how many times they can divide. This limit has already been removed in laboratory conditions, producing virtually immortal cells.
Women have a finite number of eggs.
The pituitary gland shuts down like clockwork after the age of thirty-five. So there is evidence that life span has been superimposed on the human organism. My theory suggests that the limits are not arbitrary but, indeed, have a very real purpose in maintaining the integrity of animal genes. The now inevitable extension of human life will present a challenge to many of our cherished social conventions. Some might argue that longer life spans will lead to gross overpopulation.