Modern Humans Far More Robust Than Ancestors 359
joeljkp writes "The New York Times has an article up discussing how modern humans are 'So Big and Healthy Nowadays That Grandpa Wouldn't Even Know You.' Despite the hyperbole, the article makes several excellent points regarding the impact of antibiotics and modern medicine on humans in their youth. The 'baby boomers' of today have an overall level of health far higher than their parents did in middle age, and reason stands that their children will have even better health to look forward to." From the article: "The biggest surprise emerging from the new studies is that many chronic ailments like heart disease, lung disease and arthritis are occurring an average of 10 to 25 years later than they used to. There is also less disability among older people today, according to a federal study that directly measures it. And that is not just because medical treatments like cataract surgery keep people functioning. Human bodies are simply not breaking down the way they did before. Even the human mind seems improved. The average I.Q. has been increasing for decades, and at least one study found that a person's chances of having dementia in old age appeared to have fallen in recent years."
Increasing IQ's? (Score:2, Insightful)
I doubt it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Our generations (current teenagers up to 30-somethings) have grown up with McDonalds and more, and with obesity on the rise with no end in sight, I think we'll begin to see another decline with our generation, with arthritis, diabetes, and heart disease all coming on earlier.
Re:I doubt it. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are, however, large groups of people that are doing quite the opposite (as described in TFA). We have a better chance to see exactly what keeps people going longer, better.
As a physician, these are fascinating studies, although I wonder just how good the "data" is from the 1800's. Skimming some of the abstracts from the original data, they use Nasty Statistical Thingys to impute and imply things which always makes me wonder (there's a reason I went into the Biological sciences as opposed to math and physics) how much their working the data to get thier conclusions, but they've stuck to some clever data points to prove the bulk of thier thesis (body mass index which just relies on weight and height).
Again, we have the potential for creating a much more fined grained dataset if we could ever come up with a consistent language for describing health and disease and come up with a near universal, lifelong, electronic record so that these sorts of issues can be teased out.
Already, quite a lot of this sort of data is coming from the Scandanavians who 1) have a much less diverse population than the US 2) have had more centralized, coherent and universal medical records than the US.
So toss the pizza and cigarettes, unplug the computer and take a hike.
Re:I doubt it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you never heard the phrase "greasy spoon"?
As a baby boomer let me inform you that McDonald's started serving fried burgers because that's where the demand already was. In fact, their food is a damned sight less greasy than was typical in prior times. Many older people go so far as to bemoan the fact that they can't get a properly greasy burger anymore, only that McDonald's crap.
We used to use butter as a staple. The five gallon can of lard/Crisco could be found in nearly any home's pantry. Fat puddings were revered. Colonel Sanders did not invent fried chicken.
Don't believe everything you read in the papers. If you'd ever been interviewed by one you'd know they're full of shit.
KFG
Re:Increasing IQ's? (Score:5, Insightful)
The average IQ is 100, by definition if IQ. That's what the tests are normalized for.
Re:Increasing IQ's? (Score:2, Insightful)
* unless, of course (Score:2, Insightful)
article paints incomplete picture (Score:3, Insightful)
The article talks only about how health has improved over the last few hundred years. This is almost entirely due to nutrition and sanitation. The article fails to mentions the much more interesting point that we are probably still less healthy than our ancestors of 2000 years ago. Hunter-gatherers are on average taller than Americans today, and there has never been a documented hunter-gatherer cancer death. Read accounts of the original Spanish explorers in the Carribean and Florida. They saw how much taller and healthier the hunter-gatherer tribes were.
m ondmistake.html [iastate.edu]
http://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/agron342/dia
http://www.paleodiet.com/lindeberg/ [paleodiet.com]
The ideal human diet is high in meat and animal fat. For the last several hundred years "civilized" humans have been highly reliant on grains and short on quality fats and proteins, which has been disasterous for human health. Only in the last hundred years has meat and fat consumption risen to reasonably healthy levels in wealthy countries. The effects of increased meat and fat intake was clearly documented in post-war UK and Japan, where deliberate efforts to raise egg and dairy consumption had dramatic effects on heart disease and general health.
Hey (Score:3, Insightful)
War (Score:5, Insightful)
Women dig out-of-towners, and occupying soldiers are just about the manliest out-of-towners anyone will ever meet. Plus, during an occupation, soldiers typically have the best food, sundries, and other assorted things that are great to have. The point being, it's entirely possible that the drive for war exists precisely because we evolved to wage war as a way of periodically spreading and mixing different gene pools. Just something to think about.
Sexual selection (Score:2, Insightful)
However, size I feel would be greatly affected. In both men and women (at least in European cultures) being tall lends sexual advantages and over time these will begin to alter a populations average genetic make up.
How many women are looking for short, dark and handsome?
Re:Increasing IQ's? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:we are living too long, and arent miserable eno (Score:2, Insightful)
We believe our culture to be the height of civilization, that our evolution has been a steady process of improvement, that we have gone from single-celled organisms, to brutish beasts, to intelligent beings, and only the higher from there, well, one day maybe we'll ascend and become gods ourselves!
Because of course, we're already gods of THIS planet - WE decide who lives, who dies, WE are the masters of this domain and look how wonderfully well we've done with it.
Gone are the days of our brutish tribal ancestors, the ones who worked less than we do and lived more than we do. Look back in disdain on our tribal ancestors, because they didn't have governments of billions controlling every aspect of their lives; they didn't have pollution and toxins greater than any measure in the history of the planet. No, we've done wonderfully well on the path we're on. We work harder, stress more, enjoy less, but by god we have it easier than any humans in history!
Life for the sake of life - as in, extending the length and general health of life - without purpose, is meaningless.
Only if we give ourselves a world worth living in, does any of that matter. And we are hell bent on never doing so.
We are what Daniel Quinn calls "The Takers," a people who believes it owns the world, that it is above the natural laws that kept this planet in ecological balance for millions of years, that doesn't have to participate in the natural order of the world - no, we usurp it for our own uses, destroy every habitat we find necessary in our constant, neverending goal of colonization of every square inch of livable land on the planet. Forests fall before the might of our totalitarian agriculture; whole peoples die before the might of our destiny to 'civilize' the planet.
A man can jump off a cliff and flap his arms and convince himself he is flying.. until he hits the ground.
We are a foot off the ground, and when we hit, it won't only be us to die.. no, we're hell bent on taking the entire planet with us.
We are a pathetic, deluded little culture who thinks it is God on earth. How wonderful will the day be when those illusions come crashing down.
Puh-lease! (Score:2, Insightful)
Your Logic Is Flawed (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:IQ is meaningless. Misery and lifespan matter. (Score:3, Insightful)
But you are right, most people are commiting suicide, look at the world. There are plenty of people who die saving lives, who die protecting the country, and who die with honor every day. Then there are people who just, die in the most irresponsible way they can think of. If you want a death with honor,join the military and fight in the war. If you want to die protecting your friends and family,become a cop. Die trying to save lives, or trying to make the world better, otherwise suicide is in my opinion simply fear of life. Is life miserable for most people? Yes. Does that mean we should collectively stop living? No. Or at least I don't think so.
I think however I'm outnumbered here, so there will be plenty who would rather end the world than fight to save it. Ending life is always easier than saving it.
Re:Increasing IQ's? (Score:3, Insightful)
1. As noted by the parent, it's technically meaningless.
2. Measuring intelligence is such a challenging task that many people think it's not worth trying.
3. "It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value". (Arthur C. Clarke). If you doubt this, just look at the members of Mensa and where their great intelligence has got them.
We can go to the moon, or mars. (Score:3, Insightful)
If our goal were to decrease world misery, shouldnt we start by reducing the workday? extending the weekend? reducing the work day to a 4 hour a day maximum, or adding friday as part of a 3 day weekend would do a lot to reduce world misery. I think everyone on this website would want to work less hours so they can spend more time with their families, friends, or doing things they enjoy. Instead we are working more hours than any other country. So don't tell me we don't know how to eliminate world misery when we are creating our own environment. We are the ones who want to work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, with almost no vacation time, and we don't even have a reason to be doing it.
We know how to prevent the miserable conditions, and we WANT people to be miserable. Can you with a straight face, tell me or anyone that the third world is this poor and starving to death when the third world is mostly farming land, rainforest, and has all the gold, oil and diamonds on the planet? Starvation only exists because we want people to starve. Poverty only exists because we want or need people to be poor. Ghettos only exist because we create them. It's not like these situations formed by accident, just read the history books.
The solution? We can work for quality of life, we can work for happiness, we can work to reduce misery, and it does not take a lot, just a simply change in priority. First we have to love ourselves and care about how we feel. Once we care about how we feel, then we can care about how other people such as our neighbors feel, and yes we could have a better environment for everyone if we worked to improve it. Sadly, we are working to increase misery. We have not even invited Africa, perhaps one of the largest continents on earth into the WTO, despite the fact that we get oil, gold, diamonds and other natural resources from countries, we go out of our way to avoid trade. This is why countries are poor, it's a matter of trade, and if there are sanctions, or debt it makes countries artificially poor forever.
So I don't understand your point, it's not difficult to be rational. I assume you are rational and you want to work hard today so you can work less hard tomorrow. You'd like to have robots doing most of the work so we can all work 4 hours a day. Hell you'd like to globalize the economy so we can all work 4 hours a day even sooner, but guess what, we have a globalized economy now, and we still work 8 hours a day, and now it takes 2 incomes to survive.
Denial of reality is a sign of lunacy. (Score:2, Insightful)
You are ranting and raving all over this thread against things that no one else sees because THEY DO NOT EXIST. Ok take that for what it is.
Okay, whatever you say, misery does not exist. We all are happy and enjoy our suffering.
The United States did not invent the "ghetto".
Okay, we invented the "urban" ghetto. Sure ghettos in some form always exist but we created the word "urban" and "inner city" to exclusively make certain parts of cities into the "official" ghetto. That is something America DID invent. So we did not invent poverty, or the word ghetto, but the current concept of a ghetto, you know, the urban concrete jungle, with the projects and liqour stores all over the place, that was invented here. Accept American history.
As for eliminating misery not being concern thats pure nonsense. Humans all over the world today live longer and more healthier lives than their ancesetors in the past. We have more material posessions, better health care and less worry about basic needs such as food, shelter and safety. Yes there are still regional wars in some parts of the world but there hasn't been a World War in over 50 years. You also assume that making people work less would automatically make them happier. A lot of people enjoy their jobs and only hate working because they are working at jobs they don't like. Not many people want to sit at home all day everyday. That would get boring fast.
Let's see now, more humans are dying of disaase than in any time in history. HIV, heart disease, cancer, mad cow disease, avian flu, diabetes, and this is just to name a few. Now I admit, those diseases don't kill people instantly anymore like the spanish flu or the black plague, but not much has changed. We have managed to create a health industry, which profits off making you sick and then profits again off treating that sickness. So yes we might live longer if we can afford medicine, but surprise, the majority of the world cannot afford medicine.
Yes I can tell you with a straight face that the world is poor and starving to death because we have yet figure out how to get those countries to form stable governments. There is no lack of food, there is however a lack of infrastructure and stable governments in the starving nations. While I am sure there are some evil individuals out there but as a whole no humanity does not want people to starve. I think your mental illness is the cause for your nihilism. There's just no logic behind it at all. We can't invite Africa into the WTO until they get their act together. Humans aren't socialists. We need there to be something in it for us to do something. Thats not evil. Its just the way it is and it works out very well. The capitalist system allows for ridiculously high standards of living, socialist utopian systems allow for ridiculously low standards of living. I know which one I prefer.
Okay, so we seem to believe that Africa is poor as a continent because some of the countries on that continent do not have stable governments. So explain to me why China, which was communist is becoming rich? How about India? The middle east? Latin America has had a stable government for a while, why arent we trading with Mexico, it's a lot closer than China, makes a lot of sense on paper, would save in fuel and transportation costs, and would slow illegal immigration. So why is Mexico so poor while China is so rich?
Trade policy has nothing to do with stability of governments. Yes there are governments in Africa that are not our friends, but there are governments in Africa that are our friends and have been for a long time. I'm not talking about Somalia, I'm talking about Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, even Egypt. There are plenty of third world countries, which we could be trading with right now even if si
Rape (Score:3, Insightful)
Traditionally, when conquering a city, soldiers will rape all the women and pillage its riches. This is one of the main attractions of the soldier profession. Killing all the males is optional, but also has obvious evolutionary implications.
During WW2, certainly the Red Army practiced this to the fullest, and I would guess that it was practiced by more civilized armies more than was publiciced too.