Leandra Jacobson 4/12/09

In Shepard’s book, he explains how food growing supports more people and that is why the population increases. I have always completely agreed with this statement and how now in highly populated areas is where food growth has been perfected in the form of a grocery store. Bit this statement is not entirely true, as Shepard goes on to explain the other influences involved in population increase and the misconceptions involved.
Pre-Neolithic revolution is when man was more in touch with nature, and starvation was not as prevalent as it would be though. I always assumed that the idea that the more food, the greater the population, but Shepard says that is not the only influence. There is also the social structure that influences population and life span, as he explains that life expectancy is merely “an expression of the realities of life during his evolution” (93). Taking this into consideration, and including that the major difference in life span was infant mortality, it shows that humans have not greatly increased on many levels. Shepard says that we have in fact become less healthy down the line of “evolution” instead of more healthy, congruent life expectancy only because of the assistance given from medicine to even out the balance. This is a fascinating thought and I look forward to reading more from his book about this topic.