[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.

1. Life expectancy is an average. At the risk of being morbid, if I wanted to reduce the life expectancy in Canada I'd have to kill a seriously large number of Canadians. If I randomly killed 0.1% of the current Canadians living, I'd have very little impact on the average life expectancy... but I think we can agree that the death of 40,000 Canadians or so would be a great human tragedy.

2. Generally speaking, countries with great health care do not have demonstrably increased years of increased life expectancy versus countries with average or below average health care. You can look at any life expectancy table and see that for yourself: a 2 or 3 year deviation in life expectancy is very difficult to reconcile with medical care.

3. Quality of life is the most meaningful metric. Not to be morbid (again), but in cancer trials the distinction between life expectancy and quality of life is best demonstrated: Cancer patients don't refuse chemotherapy because it doesn't extend their life (it does), but rather refuse it because it sends their QoL down the toilet. If an Israeli lives to be 80 years old but lives in constant fear of missile attack, his QoL is crap. Same thing goes for a similarly situated Palestinian. And please remember that many things can impact QoL: availability of food, availability of shelter, fear of displacement, fear for family members, etc... etc...

4. Population growth, by and large, is irrelevant to life expectancy. Edit: Interestingly, I can make a relatively strong case that it is inverse. Historically families have had multiple children due to poor life expectancy. Further, some European countries have had a slowing of population growth as their life expectancy has increased. In any case, population growth is a poor metric.

I still fail to see how anything you posted contradicts my point.