Evolution doesn’t care about longevity or quality of life: it’s all about passing genes on. If some kind of mosquito resistance didn’t lead to increasing the number of children you have there’s not going to be much selection pressure for it.
Possibly but it’s a complicated trade off: first, there’s the question of how much advantage it could confer – if young people get through a disease and the deaths are mostly old people who are past reproductive age, there might not be enough advantage (especially since humans are social - a 10 year old losing a parent is a tragedy but probably not fatal if you live with older siblings, relatives, or a tribe). Depending on what people are dying of and when, this might not be enough to select for.
The second big factor is what it would need to develop. This isn’t a directed process - something needs to confer a benefit of some sort early to be selected for, not just after hundreds of generations. If you’re talking about a major change like completely changing mammalian skin, that sounds very complicated compared to other things (such as improved immune function for the specific disease killing people), and there’s an arms race if all you’re doing is selecting for mosquitoes with better bites which might not be winnable.
Finally, there’s the question of downsides: do the mutations producing this leave you more vulnerable to other conditions, less likely to attract mates, etc. If that tough skin costs more to grow, you’re paying the cost upfront even if you’re living somewhere without a huge mosquito population, so it might be maladaptive for too much of the total population to maintain.
The downsides discussion is particularly relevant in the case of sickle cell anemia, which is believed to be a side effect of an evolved malaria resistance – beneficial if you live in an area where it’s common but a net loss if you do not:
I believe Joel was talking about Holland, MI and Herman Miller.
In the story he mentions a name Charlie Sherman, which could be some kind of reference to Herman Miller. Later on he talks about the Gerald R. Ford freeway, which is I-196 that runs right through Holland.
Furthermore, a Google Maps search of Herman Miller in Holland would indicate that there are several possibilities for a person to be driving on Lincoln Ave in which a left would direct them to Herman Miller and going straight would run them into I-196 [1].
Now, the question in my mind is: How does Joel know so much about West Michigan and in such great detail that he can accurately portray the directions he would turn. According to Joel's Wikipedia profile [2], he has never been close to Michigan his entire life. It appears to me he has never even set foot in this great state. So he can not be talking about himself. Jeff Atwood makes no mention of anything relating to Michigan on his profile [2], so I would not believe to the story a reference to Jeff.
Someone would had to have been particularly close to Joel for him to remember a story such as this in such great detail. The search continues....
He's clearly talking about Herman Miller. You're right; Herman Miller is closer to Holland than Grand Haven. I was going by memory; we drive past it several times a year on our way to our family's cottage.
