Humans aren’t peas. Pea grandparents don’t help out in child rearing but human grandparents do. There is no indication that humans face selective pressure to die early.
>There is no indication that humans face selective pressure to die early.
While I do agree that pea plants are different, human grandparents may help in child rearing, but they may also consume time and energy for care.
We're social animals that would not kill our own grandparents for having more food/time available. But nature might find it's useful for procreation if they don't live too long.
Elderly care is a huge time/energy sink. And longevity makes the input/output unfavorable in a lot of cases.
If you're in an environment like our ancestors where food was most of the time scarce, then that adds weight to this equation.
There is evidence that earlier death can help animals, so it is appropriate to extend it to all animals barring evidence to the contrary.
Long lived, already procreated animals limit the amount of evolution that can take place by drawing out the time between procreation events. So if you have 2 species, one which dies earlier but has more generations, you expect them to outcompete a longer lived species.
