To me, the conclusion reads more like "people with the tendancies to live longer lives are also the ones that were most likely to survive the Holocaust." They don't seem to have examined other populations pre/post genocide.
It makes a gruesome amount of sense that those with medical conditions or genetic predispositions to the same that generally limit age near the end of life (diabetes springs to mind, but there are surely dozens if not hundreds of others) are the most vulnerable to extreme starvation, overwork, physical punishment and all the other tortures inflicted.
i.e. There wasn't actually a benefit. The people who would lead longer lives did so, and the bottom chunk of the bell curve was eliminated, bringing the average up. No one person derived any benefit, the numbers just looked better.
That's my conclusion as well - the people who survived the camps were just the most genetically healthy and would have lived a long life anyway. There's a Greek island which has a high population of centenarians and everybody is going "It must be the diet!". But I looked up the place on Wikipedia; apparently the island was where all the communists and socialists got banished to under the fascist Junta regime of the 1960/70s. So it looks like being socialist make you live longer. Or is it to do with being better equipped to cope with the physical stresses of persecution, imprisonment and banishment?
While I'm sure terheyt's comment is more accurate all I can think of is in Ringworld where it was revealed that the Puppeteer's had been secretly breeding Humans for luck via a lottery.
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(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-02 06:02 pm (UTC)It makes a gruesome amount of sense that those with medical conditions or genetic predispositions to the same that generally limit age near the end of life (diabetes springs to mind, but there are surely dozens if not hundreds of others) are the most vulnerable to extreme starvation, overwork, physical punishment and all the other tortures inflicted.
i.e. There wasn't actually a benefit. The people who would lead longer lives did so, and the bottom chunk of the bell curve was eliminated, bringing the average up. No one person derived any benefit, the numbers just looked better.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-02 11:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-03 09:21 am (UTC)There's a Greek island which has a high population of centenarians and everybody is going "It must be the diet!". But I looked up the place on Wikipedia; apparently the island was where all the communists and socialists got banished to under the fascist Junta regime of the 1960/70s. So it looks like being socialist make you live longer. Or is it to do with being better equipped to cope with the physical stresses of persecution, imprisonment and banishment?
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-05 04:23 pm (UTC)