It's real weird that we need sunscreen. Like, how did humans not evolve out of getting cancer from literally the daytime
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Likely because they died of other stuff younger, so never really got old enough, at scale enough, to develop that? Or! You get cancer after you’ve reproduced, so it’s hard to select against that?
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That plus probably darker skin pigmentation than Aella plus a better protective ozone layer during most of our evolutionary period is what comes to mind.
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Average life expectancy is a factor (in 1960 it was ~52, 2010 it was ~70) the average age of melanoma diagnosis is 63. Most past people reproduced and died before they reached peak melanoma age. Since it affects most people at a more advanced age it seldom inhibits reproduction.
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I've read that average life expectancy is deceiving because of child deaths. (But even if that is true all it means it that it's not relevant. Your point would still stand.)
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I suppose that a part of that has to do with people that lost their melanin in the foggy swamps of the north and migrated into more habitable climates, another is a decrease in stratospheric ozone?
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UV is at its most intense during the middle of the day.
Humans, like other animals, may have just retreated during this time and foraged/hunted in the morning and evening.
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People mate and have children prior to death from skin cancer. Not much of an evolutionary driver I’d guess.
