At 08:58 18/07/97 -0500, you wrote:
>On Fri, 18 Jul 1997, Michael Coghlan wrote:
>
>>
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>> So why then are we as a species living longer and longer?
>
>
>I believe it is due to the advancements in medicine, namely
>vaccines, anti-biotics and trauma surgery.
>
>I think another thing needs to be kept in mind.  Medicine has the awesome
>ability to keep bodies going that nature would have long since shut down.
>But the bodies are damaged goods.  Alot of these additional years that
>people are living are in spent in great physical pain and suffering.

I know. This is true. But my mother in law, who has just come out of
hospital after having her cancer infected bowel removed is in no doubt.
Given the choice - death or several more years of life with a body that is
now most definitely from the damaged goods department - she will choose life.

And
>many of these chronic diseases that we are suffering from are due to the
>enourmous amounts of man-made poisons the we dump into the eniviorment or
>eat.
>
>Without the medical miracles that keep our damaged bodies alive, would we
>be living as long as the peoples of the past?
>
>
No of course not. And I think it's a bit rich for Dave Hartley to imply that
there is a world wide conspiracy to render us all spiritual cripples by
flooding the world with chemicals and toxins. You see, they (the purveyors
of these substances) actually believe they are helping us! And if longevity
is a useful measure of any kind of progress, then they're right. They are.
But maybe we should all be content with a happier, healthier, shorter life?
Say, 50 years maximum.

-M.
>-------------------------------------------------------------
>Steve Tomljenovic                    [log in to unmask]
>Software Engineer
>Neoglyphic Media Corp.               773-395-6247
>
>