Quote:
Originally posted by Hakan+Feb 20 2005, 07:00 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Hakan @ Feb 20 2005, 07:00 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Mike F@Feb 19 2005, 09:30 PM
The sheer number of medical advances made even in just the last 300 years make this a no-brainer.
People (for the most part) are much, much healthier and living much longer.
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Wrong.
That's a commonly held myth that people live longer now then they did 300 years ago. Before the industrial revolution and the emergence of city living people lived longer than we do because of that lack of toxicants in their diet, far less stress in their lives and, get this, because they didn't compulsively bathe.
You can go back and check parish records of baptisms and deaths. Some russian peasants used to live until they were over 150.
I remember reading a paper on this a while back I'll try to find a link. [/b][/quote]
Everything I've ever read says we're living longer.
As this
link points out, significantly longer on average and still noticably longer when you remove the effect of infant mortality rates :
"Life expectancy increased dramatically in the 20th century, especially in developed nations. Life expectancy at birth in the United States in 1901 was 49 years. At the end of the century it was 77 years, an increase of greater than 50%. Similar gains have been enjoyed throughout the world. Life expectancy in India and The People's Republic of China was around 40 years at midcentury. At century's close it had risen to around 63 years. These gains were due largely to the eradication and control of numerous infectious diseases and to advances in agricultural technology (such as chemical fertilizers).
Basic life expectancy numbers tend to exaggerate this growth, however. The low level of pre-modern life expectancy is distorted by the previous extremely high infant and childhood mortality. If a person did make it to the age of forty they had an average of another twenty years to live. Improvements in medicine, public health and nutrition have therefore mainly increased the numbers of people living beyond childhood, with less effect on overall average lifespan."