The State of Humanity (or life isn't as bad as you think)

If you can find this book - it is worth reading.  Too many people today moan about their lot in life.  Perhaps some of these notes might put things in perspective...

Julian L. Simon – The State of Humanity – Blackwell Publishers Inc. 108 Cowley Road Oxford OX4 1JF UK.  First published 1995 – ISBN 1 55786 119 0

                                                                                                                       

Ch. 2 Human Mortality Throughout History and Prehistory: Samuel H. Preston pp. 30

Discussing early records - …Most of these records suggest that life expectancy from prehistoric times until 1400 or so was in the range of 20 – 30 years.

…The most satisfactory collection of skeletal remains is drawn from the Maghreb peninsula (North Africa, between Egypt and the Atlantic) during the Neolithic period.  This population evidently had a life expectancy at birth of about 21 years.  Its age patterns of mortality was remarkably similar to that of modern populations at similar levels of mortality (Acsadi & Nemeskeri, 1970 – 173).

pp. 31 – GRAPH – suggests that life expectancy in 1543 was approximately 35 years.  Whilst there is some variation over the intervening time period – both up and down – this sort of life expectancy was common in the northern hemisphere up until around the mid 1800s – from that point forward, life expectancy increased.  From early 1900s through to 1980 – life expectancy rose sharply to 70 or 75 years.

pp. 35 – GRAPH – records estimates of world population through the ages, starting at 1600 BC and running through until the year 2000 AD.  In 1600 BC it is estimated that world population stood at less than 100 million.  This figure slowly rises throughout history to a level of less than 500 million.  By 1800 the figure moves to 1000 million, but from that point forward the figure explodes exponentially, climbing by the year 2000 to 6000 million.

Today – information retrieved from the Internet suggests that numbers past, current and into the future are reflected thus:

Year               Population

1                      200 million

1000               275 million

1500               450 million

1650               500 million

1750               700 million

1804               1 billion

1850               1.2 billion

1900               1.6 billion

1927               2 billion

1950               2.55 billion

1955               2.8 billion

1960               3 billion

1965               3.3 billion

1970               3.7 billion

1975               4 billion

1980               4.5 billion

1985               4.85 billion

1990               5.3 billion

1995               5.7 billion

1999               6 billion

2000               6.1 billion

2005               6.45 billion

2006               6.5 billion

2010               6.8 billion

2020               7.6 billion

2030               8.2 billion

2040               8.8 billion

2050               9.2 billion.

http://www.worldometers.info/population/

Ch. 3 – The Decline of Childhood Mortality – Kenneth Hill pp.38

Child Mortality in Prehistoric Times and Early Historic Times: 

In discussing this topic, Hill admits the difficulties involved in retrieving accurate information from fossilized remains.  However, he goes on to discuss a more reliable method using the Theoretical Constraints of Population Dynamics method…

‘Over the long haul of pre-recorded history, the human population survived but grew very slowly, with an average annual growth (allowing for periodic ups and downs) of less than one per thousand.  Births and deaths have to have been in very close balance, and the net reproduction rate (number of females surviving in the next generation to replace the mothers of one generation) must have averaged only very slightly over 1.0.  For this to have occurred, the requirements of population dynamics indicate that, over the long haul of prehistory, the probability of dying before the age of five for females was probably not lower than 440 per thousand live births and not higher than 600.  Risks to males would have been similar or higher.

pp. 47 – Conclusion:

Over the last three or four centuries, child mortality has fallen dramatically.  In developed countries, this transition from high to low mortality is essentially complete; whereas, prior to the decline, a child had about a 40 percent risk of dying by age five, today that risk is less than 1 percent.

Ch. 4 – Disease and Health through the Ages – Michael R. Haines - pp. 51…

History is replete with references to catastrophic epidemics and plagues; the destructive plague in 430 BCE in Athens during the Peloponnesian War (possibly smallpox or typhus); the repeated epidemics in the Roman Empire during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (ca. 165 – 180 CE), likely measles and smallpox;  the great plague of Justinian (542 – 565CE); and the Black Death of medieval Europe (1346 – 49 and subsequent waves), certainly bubonic plague; numerous references to periodic human mortality peaks in China; and the tremendous decline in the indigenous population of the New World after contact with Old World inhabitants after 1492 from a variety of diseases, but particularly smallpox, influenza, and measles.  Human viability is a balance with the environment that includes parasitic microorganisms. 

The Neolithic revolution of ca. 8000 BCE increased food supplies but, at the same time brought people together in situations favoring greater micro-parasitism and death through infectious disease.  Changes in human mobility, densities, locations, and activities have often disturbed that balance and population stagnation or decline.