Provocative Study Says Obesity May Reduce U.S. Life Expectancy

In the 1980s and 1990s, the late maverick economist Julian Simon infuriated environmentalists by arguing that free markets and scientific progress were constantly improving human life rather than pushing the world toward ecological ruin, social collapse, and famine. A key example was life expectancy at birth, which Simon showed had been steadily rising for centuries. Using that as a metric, he repeatedly claimed that in the 21st entury, “humanity’s condition will improve in just about every material way.”....