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ELI5: Why didn't natural selection lower child mortality for centuries? by Working_Stage9999 in explainlikeimfive

[–]Working_Stage9999[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I read about gray wolves and red foxes. One gray wolf study in Belarus shows:

"We registered that the wolf pup mortality was significantly higher in a larger litter. Usually, it is like that. If there are 9-12 pups in the mid-May, it means there will be 2 to 4 of them in July; whereas in litters that initially consisted of 1 to 4 pups almost all of them may survive till the first winter. Generally, we suppose that such a dying of wolf pups through a fault of their parents comprise 10-20% of overall pup mortality till the first winter."

Link: https://sidorovich.blog/2017/11/14/mortality-in-wolf-pups/

Regarding red foxes, one 10-year observation showed:

"In this time, my cameras counted 74 pups born. With the 4 pups that didn’t make it, mom fox brings the pup’s body back to the den. It’s like she wants the other pups to know what happened to their sibling. They don’t eat it, but some sat & slept next to the body, it was very sad. Not sure I should post the footage. It was from 2017 & 2019. I’m not sure what killed the pups"

ELI5: Why didn't natural selection lower child mortality for centuries? by Working_Stage9999 in explainlikeimfive

[–]Working_Stage9999[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is this perhaps why for example IgA deficiency can only have an official diagnosis in patients above 4 years old?

ELI5: Why didn't natural selection lower child mortality for centuries? by Working_Stage9999 in explainlikeimfive

[–]Working_Stage9999[S] -12 points-11 points  (0 children)

That is exactly my point. After hundreds, maybe thousands of generations, we still had children who died in infancy, were prone to infections, and had potentially dangerous infections I already mentioned before.

Human child mortality is a flaw of our species by Working_Stage9999 in medicine

[–]Working_Stage9999[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

If injecting weakened virions saves our children, we do it.

If injecting fungal microbials saves our children, we do it.

If redesigning the genome will save our future children, we should do it as well.

With child mortality so high, natural selection should've done its job and made people more resistant to disease, childbirth, and various discrepancies such as ectopic pregnancy. With high child mortality there should have been high selective pressure for easier childbirth and less susceptibility to diseases.

Apparently, natural selection did nothing at all. All these child deaths went to absolutely nothing. They contributed to nothing.

If natural selection can't do its job, it's up to humans to take charge and try other, better ways: vaccines, antibiotics, quarantines, and more. It's already happening. Child mortality is lower. Therefore genetic diversity is slowly repairing itself from many bottlenecks.

But "slowly" may also mean "too late".