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Modern Humans Far More Robust Than Ancestors

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the porky-too dept.

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."

2 of 359 comments (clear)

  1. To the "100 is always the avg LOL!!1" crowd by thebigo195 · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's entirely possible that the overall average is an all-time constant 100 but that people being tested in recent years have consistently beaten the historical average.

  2. Re:Increasing IQ's? by kingkongrevenge · · Score: 5, Informative
    The increasing IQ trend is called the "Flynn effect." But Flynn himself thought people were just getting better at taking tests and various other biases were interfering. He suspected that intelligence was actually declining at a rate of about 1% per generation because the dumbest among us have more children.

    http://users.fmg.uva.nl/jwicherts/wicherts2004.pdf

    This study concludes the Flynn effect is a matter of how you tweak the numbers. It's weak enough it's not really worth talking about. Other studies have shown IQs have been declining in the West since the mid to late 90s.