Factoid of the day from barefoot running expert: People back in the day weren't near-sighted

rojo wrote:

today ok wrote:

Have you really never heard of Google? Aren't you an ivy grad?

Google? Yes I've heard of it.

Why would I want to google, and spend 30 minutes researching a topic i know nothing about when i have instant access to a community of thousands of smart, live people - one of whom must know the answer way better than google.

I still believe in the power of forums.

And yes I'm an ivy grad. Does that mean I'm supposed to be an expert in all subject areas?

Instant access to a community of thousands of smart people? It's been hours and you only have 1 page of responses (and not all of them useful). That's live and instant?

I never said you were supposed to be an expert in all subjects. That sentence was attached to another sentence. Is your reading comprehension that poor? The point was that you should be able to find an obvious, easy piece of information like that on your own in no time. 30 minutes is way too long.

rojo wrote:

And yes I'm an ivy grad. Does that mean I'm supposed to be an expert in all subject areas?

No, but it does mean you should have a higher level of linguistic skills and writing aptitude (not to mention reasoning ability). What happened?

Oh for goodness sake. He posted a link related to running on a website about running and asked a question to stimulate conversation, which is something normal people typically enjoy.

Cheers for the link Rojo. I'm a fan of Lieberman and I rarely visit RT and would probably not have seen this otherwise.

Seems to me that post-industrial societies, with institutions, bureaucracies and mechanic organizations--mainly public schooling and the proliferation of cheap, affordable printed books and small household items and toys--funnels modern children through a lifestyle that facilitates myopia.

Kipketer_Pumpkin_Eater wrote:

Seems to me that post-industrial societies, with institutions, bureaucracies and mechanic organizations--mainly public schooling and the proliferation of cheap, affordable printed books and small household items and toys--funnels modern children through a lifestyle that facilitates myopia.

If that's the case then dont forget all those people spending 90% of their lives looking into a 4 inch screen. The problem wont get any better with those devices if your theory is correct.

Or Rojo knows that, as the owner of a forum on running topics, he could pose a question and get other people and experts to freely give content to him that would then get his website indexed by Google for the subject and eventually earn him ad dollars. Maybe Rojo is intelligent. Its worked for him so far. They guy makes more than $100k posing questions on a forum that he owns. Sounds smart to me.

yeah, rojo is a super genius

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ygn4585tLh8

Charming Charlie wrote:

Maybe Rojo is intelligent. Its worked for him so far. They guy makes more than $100k posing questions on a forum that he owns. Sounds smart to me.

Exactly

He probably gets a nickel (in advertising) every time someone calls him an idiot on here, or does anything else.

Who's the real idiot?

son of a bush wrote:

yeah, rojo is a super genius

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ygn4585tLh8

Bahaha! Exactly!

The guy has it setup! He can post drunk videos on YouTube and make 6 figures through them!

Captain Obliviousness wrote:

DQ wrote:

... before prostrate cancer had a chance.

All cancer eventually makes the patient prostrate.

Win!

DQ wrote:

People also probably didn't die of prostrate cancer (for example) they died of some other cause before prostrate cancer had a chance.

They still do, that's why they usually don't treat it, though they keep doing those fundraising drives for some reason.

But it's a myth that nobody lived long enough in ancient times to get cancers. The average life expectancies you hear about are heavily influenced by high infant mortality.

There's also selective pressure toward shorter lifespan in some populations and toward longer lifespan in others. It would make sense for cancer to be prevalent in the former but not in the latter. Not all medieval people were plague-ridden Monty Python peasants wallowing in dirty, rat-infested cities. Some lived quite a long time. Accurate Swedish vital records dating back to the 15th and 16th centuries prove this.

I dont believe what he says re: either situation.

Got to be careful with the "vision problems" claim. Specific finding is no myopia (nearsightedness). Most people have the opposite problem as they age.

Also, 1000 years ago, as virtually everyone was a practicing illiterate, you probably wouldn't have given a hoot about myopia.

rojo wrote:

Science people, help me out. How do we know that people back in the day weren't near-sighted? How could we possible know that?

Given that the word "myopia" is from ancient Greek, why would they have invented the word if they didn't need it?

I don't doubt, actually, that staring at computer & TV screens, reading, and other close-focus activities couldn't somehow contribute to nearsightedness. On the other hand, how well do you have to see to be a peasant?

You have people living in relatively primitive, agrarian conditions in developing nations around the world... conditions that probably aren't too fundamentally different from what people experienced in European medieval times. What incidence of nearsightedness do we find in rural African or South American villages?

son of a bush wrote:

yeah, rojo is a super genius

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ygn4585tLh8

I'm quite proud of that video.

1) There was a twitch.

2) It's been viewed over 186,000 times.

3) An IAAF person has told me that they use it in media training sessions in Africa even though she doesn't agree wtih me about the false start.

The frequency of myopia in modern humans is primarily due to poor skull/facial development due to mouth-breathing during childhood while the skull is growing and developing. If there isn't enough room for the eye sockets to promote perfectly spherical eyeballs, bending and warping takes place. Primitive humans generally had excellent skull development, and therefore great eyesight.

Orthotropics.com has more information on the subject.

rojo wrote:

son of a bush wrote:

yeah, rojo is a super genius

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ygn4585tLh8

I'm quite proud of that video.

You should be proud. It shows you at your finest. And for all the haters; not everybody can be sober and coherent.

bearer of the torch of wisdom wrote:

The frequency of myopia in modern humans is primarily due to poor skull/facial development due to mouth-breathing during childhood while the skull is growing and developing. If there isn't enough room for the eye sockets to promote perfectly spherical eyeballs, bending and warping takes place. Primitive humans generally had excellent skull development, and therefore great eyesight.

Orthotropics.com has more information on the subject.

Without delving into the messiness of Scientific validity, legitimacy, and accredition of an idea, system of ideas, discipline, etc.,

your post does,

quite fascinatingly,

expand the thought about the drastic milestone and filtering effect since the dawn of "modern," industrialized, urbanized society, since roughly 400-200 years ago to the present.

A quick glance at the wikipedia article for "malocclusion," for example, posits the partially vindicated hypothesis that our modernized lifestyles have deprived us of whole foods in their whole and natural form and chewing stress.

Yes, I'm glad you brought that up. I believe that chewing stress is also an extremely significant factor. The dual effects of a lack of hard, fibrous foods during jaw development and mouth breathing with resulting malformation/growth of the jaw and skull, with the maxila being especially underdeveloped, and hence space in the eye sockets compromised, not to mention the nasal passages and overall jaw/chin development. Weston Price was mistaken that it had to do with nutritive factors such as deficiency in the modern diet, which is clear from examples of otherwise very well developed individuals such as swimmer Michael Phelps, but whose faces are clearly malformed in some serious way. The combination of poor chewing stimulation and resulting swallowing/mouth breathing habits combined with the allergenic nature (for an enormous percentage of the population)of the "civilized" diet, which causes most children to grow up with chronically plugged noses during the time in life when it is most important that nose breathing take place for proper skull development are the true causes of what Dr. Price observed.