THE IMPACT OF BIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE ON DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

Although there has been increasing effort aimed at using biological, genetic and cognitive evidence to better assess patterns and levels of aging and longevity, it is still very troublesome to actually use that evidence in order to draw conclusions, in a demographic manner, about the phenomenon of mortality and longevity. Since there are various factors involved in determining mortality, many of which are seen from an environmental, behavioral and socioeconomic perspective, it is difficult to decompose those factors and try to understand which one has its prevalence in which context. That is a typical epistemological and methodological problem that social scientists face when trying to measure reality. Our argument is that with the advances of the natural sciences, for instance the field of neuroscience (which aggregates in its multidiscplinary perspective evidences from genetics, biology, cognitive science and social sciences), the path of linking individual-micro level to the macro-social level has become clearer to take. Our paper intents to discuss how demography could gain from using that amount of biological/neuroscientific evidence shrewdly, within its already developed frameworks and models.