That stopped some time ago for humans, at least in industralized countries. Modern medicine, long periods of peace and (eventually) welfare provisions have taken care of that. This is a further step in that direction.
Evolution works over huge numbers, both in life and death; by effectively reducing the death-count around the globe, we're progressively abolishing it for humans.
That's a common argument, but isn't it putting too much emphasis on death as a driver of natural selection? I mean, a person who lives 80 years without ever having children is as much an evolutionary dead end as a bird who dies before he gets to reproduce.
As long as there are genetic factors that lead to some people have more or less children, evolution is still at work, even if they both live to be the same age.
Evolution works over huge numbers, both in life and death; by effectively reducing the death-count around the globe, we're progressively abolishing it for humans.
That's a common argument, but isn't it putting too much emphasis on death as a driver of natural selection? I mean, a person who lives 80 years without ever having children is as much an evolutionary dead end as a bird who dies before he gets to reproduce.
As long as there are genetic factors that lead to some people have more or less children, evolution is still at work, even if they both live to be the same age.