[gcanyon]

I think you have evolution backwards. There only needs to not be a reason we need it to survive long enough to reproduce. Or more probabilistically, there needs to not be a significant reproductive benefit to it.

And bear in mind that most people don't have a problem surviving colds and the like long enough to reproduce even with no vaccines at all, and that was probably more true for much of our evolutionary history when we were living much more isolated lives, and not cohabiting with chickens and pigs.

[washadjeffmad]

At scale, yes. Because human males have significantly longer fertility periods than females, the specific adaptations of men who are healthier into later life can be passed onto offspring. The same applies to women who reach menopause while they're still healthy are able to continue caring for family without the risk of expanding the population, albeit for their offspring.

While human evolution is not predictive, it has selected for a wide variety of survival-associated adaptations beyond the mere individual.

[ivan_gammel]

>There only needs to not be a reason we need it to survive long enough to reproduce.

Humans had life expectancy even shorter than our fertility period until recently and they developed as social species hundreds of thousands years ago, for which living beyond fertility period is beneficial (grandparents were invented by evolution too).

> And bear in mind that most people don't have a problem surviving colds

That’s modern people with access to antibiotics etc.

> that was probably more true for much of our evolutionary history when we were living much more isolated lives, and not cohabiting with chickens and pigs

For much of our evolutionary history people were eating animals, getting viruses with them.

[rkangel]

> That’s modern people with access to antibiotics etc.

Antibiotics don't help against viruses like colds. And we live a life that is has a higher degree of social connectivity than our ancestors, allowing for faster spreading of disease, so we're arguably worse off.

[ivan_gammel]

>Antibiotics don't help against viruses like colds

Yes. But they help fighting secondary infections, which are common.

[gcanyon]

> Humans had life expectancy even shorter than our fertility period

That's largely due to infant/child mortality. Once you reached reproductive age, life expectancy was roughly 50, plenty of time to have plenty of kids.

[ipaddr]

If you made it to fertility age your life expectancy was much longer.

[ivan_gammel]

Yes, and to get there we use immunity that is activated on demand. Clearly that was better from evolutionary perspective than preactivation or always-on.

[jmye]

> Yes, and to get there we use immunity that is activated on demand. Clearly that was better from evolutionary perspective than preactivation or always-on.

I don't think you understand evolution. Neither needs to be "better" for anything other than survival to reproduction. Evolution isn't min-maxing in a video game.

[ivan_gammel]

I don’t think you understand it, if you cannot connect the dots. And of course “survival for reproduction” is oversimplification of what’s actually happening. Chances for survival to reproduce of some individuals are greatly influenced by survival of their relatives in the same group. The traits that help whole group to survive will win in natural selection, including those that extend survival beyond what’s necessary to reproduce to what’s beneficial for the group.

[jmye]

> I don’t think you understand it, if you cannot connect the dots.

This doesn't mean anything.

> Chances for survival to reproduce of some individuals are greatly influenced by survival of their relatives in the same group. The traits that help whole group to survive will win in natural selection, including those that extend survival beyond what’s necessary to reproduce to what’s beneficial for the group.

Which, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with whether current traits are optimized for perfection, or simply sufficient for continued reproduction. Again, evolution isn't min-maxing your video game character. I'm not clear why you have such strident opinions on something you don't understand very well.