--- Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote:
> As to the progress, well, suffice it to
> say that life expectancy
> nearly doubled across the globe in the last two
> hundred years thanks to
> scientific discoveries and technological
> innovations.
I think there's such a thing a progress, but something's bothered about the life expectancy figure and this as good a place as any to ask about it:
What have been the gains in post-childhood life expectancy in the past 200 or 1000 or even 5000 years?
In other words, how much of the gain in life expectancy is due to gains in preventing childhood mortality vs. how long people who grow into adulthood live? Colonial-era graveyards have an a lot of people who lived into their 70s and 80s.
Plus there's that Bushian "Blacks don't get their fair share of SS" thing.
Thanks, Andy
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