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From: jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone)
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: Dinosaurs killed by DAIDS?
Message-ID: <2435@calmasd.GE.COM>
Date: Wed, 30-Sep-87 17:08:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: calmasd.2435
Posted: Wed Sep 30 17:08:28 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 5-Oct-87 02:36:10 EDT
References: <1057@mipos3.intel.com> <9114@ut-sally.UUCP> <3913@ecsvax.UUCP> <1598@rayssd.RAY.COM>
Distribution: na
Organization: G.E.- Calma R&D, San Diego, CA
Lines: 27
Keywords: AIDS, life expectancy

(M. Joseph Barone) writes:
> .......
> Now, to refute the premise that the average lifespan
> during the Middle Ages was 30, people are exempting just about every
> condition that brought that average down!  
> .......
> Somehow, though, I don't think this is sound statistical analysis.

Right Joe.  In fact it isn't even good english.  There is a difference
between the average lifeSPAN and life expectancy.  The fact is that the
lifespan of humans hasn't really changed all that much over many hundreds,
maybe even thousands, of years.  What HAS changed dramatically is the life
expectancy (number of years you can expect to live).  This has gone up,
fairly continuously, for the same hundreds/thousands of years. (I think that
there have been some very small, local, dips within my lifetime - but the
trend is overwhelmingly upward).

The point is that although people have always been ABLE to live to 80 they
haven't done so, very often, until relatively recent times. 

Read some on the Middle Ages - it was a brutal, disease ridden time.  The
chances were overwhelmingly good that you would only live to see your
thirties.
-- 
These opinions are solely mine and in no way reflect those of my employer.  
John M. Pantone @ GE/Calma R&D, Data Management Group, San Diego
...{ucbvax|decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!jnp          jnp@calmasd.GE.COM