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There's always wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy The first subsection is "variation over ti
by mnemonicsloth 17y ago
There's always wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
The first subsection is "variation over time". The drop between the paleolithic and neolithic coincides with the development of agriculture.
This is a pretty contentious issue. The idea that humanity's single most (evolutionarily) successful technology caused a massive decline in individual quality of life is pretty disturbing, and some of the evidence is contradictory. It seems like a debate best left to experts, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
I still agree with the original post -- we're very lucky to be alive now.
- scw 17y agoCheck out Jared Diamond's "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race": http://www.awok.org/worst-mistake/ http://www.awok.org/worst-mistake/
- 27182818284 17y agoI was actually going to point to Jared Diamond as well! In his book The Third Chimpanzeem Jared writes about the immediate decline of health that followed the introduction of agriculture. By measuring the health of teeth, and etc we can see a noticeable drop in the years immediately following agriculture. Looks like the article you linked to covers the same material.