Things do not just develop because they are good in evolution, they survive because they aren’t sufficiently bad.
It is most likely that certain traits come into being for no particular reason and continue if they are good or not sufficiently bad.
Take a sabre tooth cat for instance. Assuming that their canines did not suddenly grow six inches, but grew gradually, there is absolutely no competitive advantage to having teeth that are 1/2 mm longer. Therefore, it is far more likely that the a genetic code change created ever growing teeth. That the cat found advantage to this was adaptation, and may have reinforced the evolution. When the teeth became too long, the trait was sufficiently negative enough to cause a change in the gene pool.
Taking post-reproductive women as the specific example. It is the height of creative silliness to think that women evolved to be unreproductive caretakers. Any creative person could easily generate a half-dozen alternative theories explaining why it developed. In fact, it is simply wishful thinking to crudely elevate any positive feature to the role of prime selector.
Why do human females cease to reproduce in the middle of their lives? We don’t know. All we know is that they do, and that the result is not so negative as to eliminate the species.
Your logic applied to the average workplace would make lazy, unproductive workers essential, based on the undeniable fact that they are there. Thus, whatever they do provide must be a positive. In truth, as long as they aren't sufficiently bad, they will likely remain. Although evolution might provide a better worker, it will not eliminate the old one unless that worker is sufficiently bad.
“Taking post-reproductive women as the specific example. It is the height of creative silliness to think that women evolved to be unreproductive caretakers. Any creative person could easily generate a half-dozen alternative theories explaining why it developed. In fact, it is simply wishful thinking to crudely elevate any positive feature to the role of prime selector.
“Why do human females cease to reproduce in the middle of their lives? We don’t know. All we know is that they do, and that the result is not so negative as to eliminate the species.”
You and some other poster here are ASSUMING women (and men) lived PAST women’s typical “child-bearing years” in the STONE AGE. Typically way back then in pre-history, the age of death was just 40 or so.
Your points about women being useless when they stop reproducing is specious because as far as anyone in the Stone Age was concerned, there was no such thing as an “old woman” who could not have a baby.
I’ll add that there are other females of the species who live a bit beyond their reproductive years.
And let’s bear in mind before making it seem that men are all superior for “reproductive usefullness” - women bear a huge burden compared to men. All they have to do is shoot out some bit of liquid in 5 seconds. Women have to gain weight and bulkiness, have their hormones screw up their bodies’ normal functions, and so on for months on end. It’s MUCH easier to continue spitting out some liquid forever than to do all the latter into “old age” (which didn’t exist in the Stone Age).