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> In fact, evolution has not worked to maximize life span, but only to make it sufficient to assure time for reproduction.

Longer life spans would /slow down/ evolution. Evolutionary lines with very long lifetimes would evolve more slowly than evolutionary lines with shorter lifetimes, and would be quickly overtaken by them.

Of course, all of us alive today would be happy to make that trade off going forward ;)

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But does evolution select for evolutionary ability? If there aren't significant selection pressures then there's no use in adapting for adaptability.

Does evolution matter for a species where every sick offspring is saved at birth?

Yes. Because we still have a situation where not every person becomes a parent, and those that do have wildly different numbers of offspring.

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