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People always quote this, and I always wonder why it makes any difference. People in hunter-gatherer societies weren't "more healthy" than we are (as you imply
by tedks 13y ago
People always quote this, and I always wonder why it makes any difference.
People in hunter-gatherer societies weren't "more healthy" than we are (as you imply in a later comment). Most people in hunter-gatherer societies died as infants. I don't consider that healthy, and I consider infants people.
On average, most hunter-gatherers died at 20. In reality, virtually all hunter-gatherers died at 0, and the few that survived might live to 60.
Again: this is the "things were better in the past" / "evolution is always right" argument template, and it's virtually always wrong.
- mikevm 13y agoIt makes a difference because people assume that it's been a constant improvement ever since hunter-gatherer times, and it probably wasn't. I'm saying that the quality of life for most people probably went downhill ever since the Agricultural Revolution, and what humanity has been doing ever since was trying improve it using medicine, science, sanitization, and more. I'm not saying that the hunter-gatherers were healthier than we are today (note my use of "might've" in the original post), but evidence shows that the lives of people in post-hunter-gatherer societies was worse. Life expectancy went up considerably only in the very recent past: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_variation_over_time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy... [Note the reduction of life expectancy in the Neolithic (agricultural revolution).] Anyways, I'm not an expert on the subject and I don't have the energy to start going through papers and digging up more rigorous data.
- tedks 13y agoHow can you say quality of life has gone down when most people from hunter-gatherer times died as infants? Dying as an infant would be a pretty shit quality of life in my book, I don't know about you.