Tetraeffective causes of mortality and survivorship

Any cause that negatively affects mortality, positively affects mortality, negatively affects survivorship, and positively affects survivorship is tetraeffective (i.e., having four kinds of effects). However, until now, tetraeffective causes of mortality and survivorship have been unrecognized, unidentified, unnamed, misconceived, unclear, unexplained, and unspecified. Here I recognize, identify, and name these causes, and I show that every tetraeffective cause of mortality and survivorship combines corresponding at least one mortacause and at least one vitacause; “mortacause” refers here to a cause that positively affects mortality and negatively affects survivorship, and “vitacause” refers to a cause that positively affects survivorship and negatively affects mortality. I elucidate and explain the sources, contexts, and implications of tetraeffective causes of mortality and survivorship, I present strong rationales that suggest that every cause of mortality and survivorship is tetraeffective, and I also present references to considerable previous evidence that I interpret to be suggestive evidence of tetraeffective causes of mortality and survivorship. Moreover, rigorous and thorough multivariable analyses of humans’ and medflies’ mortality and survivorship provide here direct evidence of tetraeffective causes of mortality and survivorship, revealing bestfitting specifications dY/d(X) = a + bX such that sign(a) = -sign(bX), where: Y indicates mortality or survivorship; X indicates age, lifespan, contemporary aggregate size, lifespan aggregate size, or historical time; dY/d(X) indicates composite effects of X on Y; a indicates an X-specific mortacause or vitacause; bX indicates the corresponding opposite X-specific mortacause or vitacause; and coefficients a, b, and p denote respective X-specific and entityspecific constants. Thus recognition, identification, naming, conceptualization, elucidation, explanation, specification, and demonstration of tetraeffective causes of mortality and survivorship usher a new paradigm of causes of mortality and survivorship and enable and promote further scientific research and practical applications. Page 1 peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not . http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/039438 doi: bioRxiv preprint first posted online Feb. 17, 2016;