On Fri, 18 Jul 1997, Toby Martin wrote:

> Todd Moody wrote:
> > In a world in which
> > infant and childhood mortality rates are high, the family that
> > has healthy grandparents and even great grandparents to help with
> > the child rearing and other tasks has a distinct advantage over
> > the family in which the adults succumb at a young age to
> > diet-related disorders, hence the intensity of the selction
> > pressure.
>
> Geez, I guess that's plausible, but it seems pretty damn hard to
> quantify how significant the advantage is. I mean, couldn't you
> just as easily argue that families with a lot of grandparents
> kicking around have to devote precious time, energy, and
> resources to their care? Maybe there's some advantage to not
> being burdened with the elderly. Who can quantify these
> advantages and weigh them against each other?

It's an important point.  There can be healthy elders or there
can be elders who are so sick that they are a burden.  This only
intensifies the selection pressure.  Healthy elders are a
resource, an asset to any family.  This is the sort of family
that you would want to marry into.  Families in which the oldest
members don't survive very long or are sickly and helpless are
unattractive, from a mating standpoint.  If the sickliness is
diet-driven, then there's a strong selection pressure there.

Todd Moody
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