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The health benefits of sunlight may outweigh the risk of skin cancer

(www.economist.com)
279 points petethomas | 1 comments | 19 Sep 25 04:46 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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pinkmuffinere ◴[19 Sep 25 07:09 UTC] No.45298755[source]▶
It’s tempting to see things like this and think “well of course it does, because that’s how we evolved”. But I think that might just be post-rationalization? At the very least, I think the argument _doesn’t_ hold for periodic famine, extreme temperatures, most disease, etc even though we also evolved with those things. Is there any guiding principle that separates the things-we-evolved-with-that-are-good vs the -that-are-bad? Or is it really just a case-by-case examination?
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brightball ◴[19 Sep 25 17:42 UTC] No.45304373[source]▶
Since I was a little kid I was always skeptical of slathering something all over my body just to go outside. Just thought…how did people survive before this stuff if we really need it so bad.
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1. Earw0rm ◴[19 Sep 25 20:54 UTC] No.45306448[source]▶
White people - depending on your definition, I mean pale-skinned Northern Europeans - are adapted to live north of about 45 degrees.

Obviously they live lots of other places now, but evolution is slow to catch up.

If you drive through France for a day, you can literally see the change from north to south, "could be Dutch" in the far north to "could be Spanish" in the south. Of course lots of people move around but I'm talking about averages.