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To-do list for Death: edit · history · watch · refresh · Updated 2024-12-10

Expansion

In biology

• Animal behaviour when dying and towards dying/dead animals
  • Grief in the Chimpanzee Arthur E. Brown The American Naturalist > Vol. 13, No. 3 (Mar., 1879), pp. 173-175 Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-0147%28187903%2913%3A3%3C173%3AGITC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-M
  • Deaths role in natural selection (expand), geometrical expansion of species and the struggle for life, shorten extinction section
• Causes of death
  • Predation, parasitism and other potentially fatal biological interactions
  • Natural disasters
  • Accidents and injuries
  • Senescence, evolution of ageing

In medicine

• Cut down the defintion section, perhaps look at a separate article such as medical definition of death
• It may also be appropriate to create a separate article on Causes of death (not just a list)
• Death before or following birth: Miscarriage, stillbirth, abortion and infant mortality
• Pandemics

In culture

• A middle sized version of the death and culture article needs to come back (a summary, but a reasonably detailed one)
• The discussion of abortion does not seem neutral
• Tasks now at Talk:Death and culture/to do
• Add 'Symbolism' subsection summarizing Symbols of death

Other

• Expand lead section to 3 or 4 good paragraphs (in progress, contributions welcome)
• Introduce each main subsection with a paragraph or so of prose
• Reference fully
• Perhaps finished, not entirely sure. Article is too animal (especially human) centered - greater discussion of other life forms needed
• Merge as much of 'See also' into the article as possible
• Improve picture placement, ensure all free images used are moved to or located at commons
• Discuss whether this article should be split any further, and if so how to split it (e.g. death in nature (non-human death), death in science (biology and medicine or human/non-human death), death in medicine, death and culture (done), human death (medicine and culture, probably not given we now have a culture article)). Current size is around 60 kilobytes. You can comment at Talk:Death#Splitting off articles.
• Please comment if electrical activity in the cortex/whole brain, once it has stopped, could be restored. If so, there need to be a time frame for electrical inactivity in which consiousness can be recovered.
• Needs a whole section on "Awareness of Death" in both animals and children. Ernest Becker has shown that awareness of death occurs in children at between the ages of 3 and 6, and results in an "Existential crisis" which requires resolution for healthy human development. Also there is no mention of the pioneering "Death and Dying" work of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.
• It would be excellent to have a section (or whole article) dealing with the actuarial perspective on death, specifically, likelihoods for death by age and by cause.
• Resubmit for GA when rest is complete
• death of non-organics like a dead volcano, electronic circuit and star

Please add anything you feel is missing

I really feel like there needs to be a section on coping with death or different ways to find help when dealing with death. (Clbratt (talk) 22:41, 23 March 2009 (UTC)). I will make it, I have all of the information, I just don't want it to get deleted right after I make it (Clbratt (talk) 23:22, 23 March 2009 (UTC)).

I also agree, there should be a section added or a link to explain how grieving with different types of death are possible. Depending on how the death occurred, from sudden death to a sudden occurrence of death. (Bmhans3 (talk) 20:19, 26 March 2009 (UTC)) I have some additional information that may be possible to add to Clbratt's information, if wanted. (Bmhans3 (talk) 20:21, 26 March 2009 (UTC))

Here is some information regarding phases of grief, part of the coping stage. 1. Shock: disbelief, unreal 2. Denial: denying that your spouse is actually gone, that it is not true. 3. Bargaining with a higher power to make it all go away. 4. Guilt: difficult stage to get through, you start to blame yourself for the death. You feel as if you did something differently they would still be here. but everyone is responsible for their own actions, there is no way you made anyone do anything. This stage would be helpful to have a friend to talk too, to help you understand it is not your fault. 5. Anger: not always a phase, some find it easier to move on if they are angry at the spouse for leaving, but often it leads to feeling guilty for being angry at them, if the phase doesn't start to occur, don't worry yourself, you can skip this phase. 6. Depression: varies, it comes and goes, give it as much time as possible to heal. While dealing with depression stages try to stay clear of the child and not let them know you’re breaking down. Remember be strong for the child. 7. Resignation: finally believe the reality of the death 8. Acceptance and Hope (“moving on”): you finally understand it can never be the same, but you have to move on in life with a meaning and a purpose. (Bmhans3 (talk) 22:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC))

The summary does not relate to the topic at hand -- "Humans increased the number of extinctions in recent times, one cause being, for example, the destruction of ecosystems as a consequence of the spread of industrial technology." Not only is human causes of extinction events completely unrelated, but it doesn't sound completely neutral. This should be removed. --Andreas