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Forums - General Discussion - How we die: 1900 vs 2010

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haxxiy on 22 June 2012
Soleron said:
Troll_Whisperer said:
...

So... because us humans are defying natural selection by curing people of deadly diseases that can be transmitted to the next generation (instead of letting these people die and not have children) we are getting more and more likely to get these diseases. Cool.

 

That would explain why there are more asthma, alergies, shortsighted people, etc. With my sight I should be dead if it wasn't for our modern society, and now my children may be in the same situation.

No. Doesn't work like that at all. Will take 500+ years (tens of generations) for natural selection to have this effect, if it even does.

Prevalance of asthma/sight problems isn't actually higher, but reporting of it is. People just dealt with it. I've read a plausible theory that increased allergies are due to lack of exposure at or around birth, i.e. our society is cleaner now.


Not quite, natural selection and evolution are far more prevalent and noticeable during times of great environmental change, sometimes really quickly (up to one million times faster than absolute mutation rate).

Besides the great population boom in our planet happened exactly because our medical knowledge increased, allowing people who would otherwise be dead to live through infancy. It's highly unlikely that they all died before due to environmental factors and not genetical ones.

Right know it's very unlikely we aren't genetically deteriorating, so to speak. No amount of politically correct thinking will change that, neither will thinking all it's fine and dandy due to the mystic wonders of technology...



 

 

 

 

 

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NintendoPie on 22 June 2012
badgenome said:
They used to rule a lot of suicides as "accidents", maybe?

It's quite possible. Maybe they were just overall more stupider way back then?



NintendoPie on 22 June 2012
mysticwolf said:
medicine is the biggest thing really. it changed everything

In great and horrid ways.



Andrespetmonkey on 22 June 2012
NintendoPie said:
mysticwolf said:
medicine is the biggest thing really. it changed everything

In great and horrid ways.

In great ways like treating the headache I have right now and horrid ways like keeping you alive.



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badgenome on 22 June 2012
NintendoPie said:
badgenome said:
They used to rule a lot of suicides as "accidents", maybe?

It's quite possible. Maybe they were just overall more stupider way back then?

I doubt it's possible to be dumber than people are today.



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NintendoPie on 22 June 2012
Andrespetmonkey said:
NintendoPie said:
mysticwolf said:
medicine is the biggest thing really. it changed everything

In great and horrid ways.

In great ways like treating the headache I have right now and horrid ways like keeping you alive.

You are such a meany APM. Are you going through what RY was going through?

Anyway, I meant that they could cause more problems than they are helping. I hope that headache gets... better.



Andrespetmonkey on 22 June 2012
NintendoPie said:
Andrespetmonkey said:
NintendoPie said:
mysticwolf said:
medicine is the biggest thing really. it changed everything

In great and horrid ways.

In great ways like treating the headache I have right now and horrid ways like keeping you alive.

You are such a meany APM. Are you going through what RY was going through?

Anyway, I meant that they could cause more problems than they are helping. I hope that headache gets... better.

Could be a tumor



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SvennoJ on 22 June 2012
superchunk said:
Soleron said:


Absolutely not. That's a weird mix of different claims there, let me seperate them out.

The chemicals added to food do not cause cancer or health problems, that is scaremongering and not backed up by evidence. They mostly function as nutritionless filler, but they're not actually bad.

GM organisms are exactly as healthly as selectively breeding for the same genes.

I agree our diet has changed, but I don't think it is much worse. People then were dying from underconsumption and lack of nutrients. People today are dying from overconsumption of fat/salt/sugar, and lack of nutrients. They aren't that different though, both are diet problems.

Our current cancer rates are due to 1. age and 2. smoking+age, not anything to do with food additives, GM, or electronic devices.

The misconceptions of science in this thread makes me sad.

ok. You keep telling yourself that chemicals that get added to food are harmless even though every few months some new one is shown by FDA to be a cancer causing agent and in another 100yrs we look back at 2010 as the dark ages of food manipulation.

I mean boys and girls are physically maturing faster than ever before couldn't possibly be related to growth hormones in animals.

Higher rates of cancers, ADHS in children (specifically related to red dye), and other defects or issues like childhood diabetes couldn't possibly be related to items we think are safe or at least in small quantities are considered safe.

Hell, 50 years ago we prescribed opium and heroine to children on a daily basis. Guess doctors and scientists could never be wrong.

go watch Food Inc. It makes it perfectly clear with evidence regarding the manipulation of our food. It shows perfectly the differences between FDA regulation of tap water (really thorough) and bottled water (non-existant). Genetic diseases and cancer and such are not rising just because we're aging 30 years longer on average. Otherwise only old people would be getting those diseases and I'm pretty positive if you looked into cancers and other diseases its increased dramatically at all age levels. Especially the younger groups as they've only lived in times where profits are more important than food quality.

I watched it a while ago. I already knew about most of what was going on but there were still some eye openers. Good documentary over all.
Today it's all about high fructose corn syrup in everything to suit the overproduction of corn. From my childhood I remember a big government campaign to get people to drink more milk. There was a large amount of overproduction, so consumption needed to be improved. At least 4 glasses a day and free milk in schools. Now more and more evidence surfaces that cow milk isn't all that compatible with the human body after all and can cause a lot of problems in children.

It's not just messing with food, there are new chemicals all around us. Also from my childhood I remember a lot of concerns about dioxin poisoning. http://www.ideaconnection.com/solutions/569-Dioxin-poisoning.html Now known to cause cancers.



NintendoPie on 22 June 2012
Andrespetmonkey said:

Could be a tumor

I'm pretty sure that song just gave me a tumor. Now get back on topic you tumor infested Monkey! 



Andrespetmonkey on 22 June 2012
NintendoPie said:
Andrespetmonkey said:

Could be a tumor

I'm pretty sure that song just gave me a tumor. Now get back on topic you tumor infested Monkey! 

What topic?



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