Life Expectancy Fallacy

Just a small nitpick, but on the George Conway Explains It All podcast, there was a question about term limits based on the average life expectancy at the founding being low (I believe 35).

This is a common fallacy repeated about a lot of time periods. This issue is that infant mortality was once much higher, and well as for children. Thanks to vaccines and child labor laws, that’s no longer true. But whether in medieval times or late 18th century, if you made it to adulthood you had a good chance of making it to middle age.

For example the six original Supreme Court justices and their age at death:

John Jay 83

James Wilson 55

William Cushing 78

John Blair 68

John Rutledge 60

James Iredell 48