[3chelon]

It is blindingly obvious from an evolutionary standpoint that this is happening. I have thought about it a fair bit, as it has directly impacted my own family, and I've no doubt it will continue to do so in subsequent generations.

I don't think it's something to worry much about, as the much broader benefits of modern medicine (namely, antibiotics) have had so much impact on our survival rate that this would pale into insignificance.

Which may be borne out (pun intended) by the numbers: 3% to 3.3% or 3.6% in 50-60 years - is that statistically significant? The error there is in the same order as the overall increase, so it's hard to believe it's even measurable at this stage.

Because it is so obviously going to happen, I suspect there may be some curve-fitting going on here?

[Noseshine]

  > 3% to 3.3% or 3.6% in 50-60 years - is that statistically significant? 

Since all births are recorded, the sample size is very large. So without having the numbers and doing any calculations, just based on that I'm pretty sure even a much smaller increase would still be statistically significant.

[mjevans]

The growth rate is likely to be geometric.