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For starters, the "people lived shorter lives long ago" argument is based on high percentages of infant mortality. While quality of life wasn't always great, th

For starters, the "people lived shorter lives long ago" argument is based on high percentages of infant mortality. While quality of life wasn't always great, the idea that folks only lived to 30 or 40 is pretty easily demonstrated to be false.

fpgaminer 10y ago
Citation needed. I found the following after a quick search: http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/life_history/age-specific-mortality-lifespan-bad-science-2009.html http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/life_history/age-specifi... That seems to indicate that age specific mortality rates _have_ decreased across the board, not just infant mortality. And it also backs up that our in-city lifespans used to be ~30-35 after juveniles. To be clear, that's exactly the figure I'm interested in, not maximum lifespan. If, on average, most adults die around 30-35 2000 years ago and today most adults die around 70, then that, to me, is a clear indication that human driven engineering/science is succeeding on average compared to evolution and that our technologies (in particular, our synthetic chemicals) are more trustworthy than nature's. > While quality of life wasn't always great We've eliminated or nearly eliminated a great number of diseases in the modern age. These are diseases which don't reduce quality of life; they kill. You don't go from a bacterial infection to "Well, I'm alive, but my quality of life is worse". You just die. You don't get tetanus and have a sore jaw for the rest of your life; you die. You don't get diabetes and just live the rest of your life with high/low blood sugar. You pass out and die one day. These are all diseases which have existed through all of human history which by necessity of their mortality rates and incidences of occurrence must have increased the age specific mortality rates for all ages. We've cured these, and so age specific mortality rates must have decreased. If today we replaced all sugars with artificial sweeteners the same thing would happen; lower age specific mortality rates.

fpgaminer 10y ago

Citation needed. I found the following after a quick search: http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/life_history/age-specific-mortality-lifespan-bad-science-2009.html http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/life_history/age-specifi... That seems to indicate that age specific mortality rates _have_ decreased across the board, not just infant mortality. And it also backs up that our in-city lifespans used to be ~30-35 after juveniles. To be clear, that's exactly the figure I'm interested in, not maximum lifespan. If, on average, most adults die around 30-35 2000 years ago and today most adults die around 70, then that, to me, is a clear indication that human driven engineering/science is succeeding on average compared to evolution and that our technologies (in particular, our synthetic chemicals) are more trustworthy than nature's. > While quality of life wasn't always great We've eliminated or nearly eliminated a great number of diseases in the modern age. These are diseases which don't reduce quality of life; they kill. You don't go from a bacterial infection to "Well, I'm alive, but my quality of life is worse". You just die. You don't get tetanus and have a sore jaw for the rest of your life; you die. You don't get diabetes and just live the rest of your life with high/low blood sugar. You pass out and die one day. These are all diseases which have existed through all of human history which by necessity of their mortality rates and incidences of occurrence must have increased the age specific mortality rates for all ages. We've cured these, and so age specific mortality rates must have decreased. If today we replaced all sugars with artificial sweeteners the same thing would happen; lower age specific mortality rates.