{"id":28650,"date":"2010-10-04T19:04:50","date_gmt":"2010-10-05T03:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/gnxp\/?p=6913"},"modified":"2010-10-08T19:28:18","modified_gmt":"2010-10-09T03:28:18","slug":"things-are-looking-up-for-the-world%e2%80%99s-poor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.razib.com\/wordpress\/2010\/10\/04\/things-are-looking-up-for-the-world%e2%80%99s-poor\/","title":{"rendered":"Things are looking up for the world\u2019s poor!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just listened to a discussion between John Horgan and Madhusree Mukerjee<\/a>, and the conversation ended on a moderately down note as Mukerjee seemed pessimistic about the prospects for the world’s poor. Where do these people get the idea that things are getting worse?<\/b> I recall the same sentiment from Massimo Pigliucci<\/a>. These are people with advanced degrees in science (Mukerjee has a doctorate in physics from University of Chicago, and Pigliucci has multiple advanced degrees), but they seem totally immune to the empirical trendlines of our age.<\/p>\n

Here is China’s life expectancy over the past 50 years:<\/p>\n