PSYC 385 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Advanced Maternal Age, Whistle Rymes, Menopause
27 Mar 2015
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7. 1 when to die: the evolution of lifespan. Darwinian evolution organisms seek to preserve their own lives because one"s reproductive success is usually higher alive than dead. Includes motivated behaviour, avoiding predators and diseases, seeking food and water. Even if there is no external cause of death, all organism do eventually die. Senescence - after around 80 years, human suffer from multiple physiological processes that deteriorate markedly. Genes are in body, and if body dies the gene only lives on as long as the body has reproduced (or caused closed kin to reproduce) before it died potentially gene would be immortal. Could be advantageous to the immortal gene lines currently residing in that body. Extrinsic mortality risk the probability of an individual dying in a given time period through events in the environment that they could do essentially nothing about, like predators, etc. Risk can vary, but can never be 0.
