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Well arguably we haven't evolved to survive past reproductive years - life expectancy past 40 is only about 150 years old. That's much too short of a time for e
by TTPrograms 12y ago
Well arguably we haven't evolved to survive past reproductive years - life expectancy past 40 is only about 150 years old. That's much too short of a time for evolutionary effects to have an impact.
- nostromo 12y agoYou're misreading the statistics a bit. The biggest gains in life expectancy have been at birth. There have been old people for a lot longer than the last 150 years. Even Aristotle knew about menopause. And Plato lived to be 80.
- darkmighty 12y agoYou have to remember a significant time in human evolutionary scale is probably something like 10k-100k years. Looking at wiki page for life expectacy at the Paleolithic [1] (even at 15 years) shows it lines right up with woman menopause. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
- FeeTinesAMady 12y agoLife expectancy is a mean value, and it's skewed by people dying young. So the life expectancy at the Paleolithic doesn't mean that people didn't survive past menopause: it means that a lot of people died young.