The point is that recent cultural changes have rendered those "corrections" inadequate. As recently as 75 years ago, MOST of the population spent most of their time outdoors, and they were consuming very large amounts of food due the the needs of high physical labor. That is no longer the case.
"Clothing has been worn for at least 10,000 years. So, that, too, is hardly a factor with modern humans—it’s part of our evolutionary picture, as is eating cooked food."
And you know that 10,000 years is enough to correct the Vitamin D deficiency?? I don't think so.
"Pill-popping, otoh, has only been around for a few decades. Obviously, the human race survived this long without it."
Mere survival vs. optimal health are two totally different things.
"I could see how pill popping would have an effect on our evolution—where our bodies would increase efficiency of ridding ourselves of these excesses of chemicals, to the point where it would be impossible to maintain physiologically healthy levels of vitamins and minerals without popping supplements. But we have not reached that point yet."
Ridiculous. We don't even know what "physiologically healthy" levels ARE.
"Medical disorders aside, either you are getting enough of the necessary vitamins and minerals in a healthy, balanced diet, or you’re eating an unbalanced diet that no amount of pill popping is going to rescue."
Completely ridiculous. The decision to add Vitamin D to foods to prevent rickets says that most people CANNOT get enough in their diets.
I eat a reasonably healthy diet, but lifestyle, work, and the "beautiful weather" in the Pacific Northwest keeps me indoors most of the time, so I do NOT get much sunlight. My blood tests show that my free Vitamin D levels are at the bitter low end of the statistical range of normal, and that is WITH taking 2000 IU/day of supplements.
As a chemist, I "do" understand about peer-reviewed literature, and the evidence to be found there is convincing to ME (along with the above blood tests), at any rate, that supplementation is desirable in my case. And my physician agrees with me.
Our culture gives us access to a huge variety of foods that people didn't have access to 75 years ago. And while some people may have spent more time outdoors back then, they tended to cover themselves head to toe with clothing. From reading the Little House on the Prairie books, I happen to know that it was not considered attractive to get tans back in the 1800s. What all of this means is that there is no reason to think that people ate a wonderfully nutritious diet, or had perfect nutrition back then: we're far better off today.
My whole point is that, if you identify a bona fide nutrient shortage in your diet, you are far better off making up for it by adjusting your diet than by taking pills. Few, if any pills, are actual supplements--they contain several times the RDA, whereas a true supplement would not even contain a full RDA, since the idea would be to make up the shortfall in your diet. Unfortunately, people think that if, you need 20 mg of nutrient X to be healthy, it must be 1000 times as healthy to take 20,000 mg of it. That is simply not true. Aside from acute toxicity issues, there aren't a lot of studies on the long-term health effects of taking mega dosage supplements. That doesn't mean they're safe--just that those studies aren't being done yet. The few done so far indicate that mega-doses can, in fact, have very deleterious effects long-term.
And you know that 10,000 years is enough to correct the Vitamin D deficiency?? I don't think so.
In 10,000 years, some quite noticeable changes in human physiology have occurred. Teeth, for example, have been shrinking. People are larger. With strong selective pressures, it does not take long at all to observe evolutionary changes. I doubt it took anywhere near 10,000 years, in fact, to adapt to the lower sunlight levels reaching northern latitudes--where the native people are paper-white.
My training is in biochemistry, specializing in toxicology.