Evolution and Phenoptosis

As aging is certainly harmful to the senescent individual, any hypothesis of an adaptive explanation for aging is in evident contrast with the idea of evolution conceived exclusively as “survival of the fittest” (Darwin 1869). Therefore, it is necessary first to define clearly the concept of “survival of the fittest” and then to emphasize how the idea of supra-individual forms of natural selection makes this concept only a particular case in a more general frame that is compatible with the hypothesis of an adaptive significance of aging.