Re:No limit to maximal lifespan in humans: how to beat a 122...
by coldtea on Thursday December 16, 2021 @07:08AM
(#29577379)
>How is 122 ANYTHING other than a random number?
It is a random number. They could have lived to 122. But 0 have been shown to live to 150, and we're most certain 0 lived to 200 or 500.
There being a natural limit doesn't mean that "largest age found" is the limit. It just means that there's a natural (e.g. cell based) process that kills people with increasing certainty as they age, with a measured cap around 120 years or so.
Whether that can tomorrow or historically been found to be 130 or 150 in some random human that gets/got to be ultra-old doesn't mean it's not statistically more than appplicable to the 99.99% percentile of humans, or that there's no "increasing natural death certainty" with a limit towards 100% as people age.
>Just because all of your data points show the same thing, doesn't make that thing true.
It surely makes the thing statistically true (this is what happens most commonly), and points to processes and factors making it so.
>Oh, your set is all human lives ever recorded? Meh... Doesn't mean a thing. Your set is too small.
Huh? "Too small" compared to what? One that would include humans in prehistory or pre-modern-registries that might have lived more? (And we do know that they lived less too, even if they're not recorded, from the bodies/bones/etc. records we have).
Rather, the dataset is huge, and (after 20th century or so, where globally registry records are kept) close to exhaustive. Statistically if anything it's much more than required.
>To me, it is self-evident that there is no natural limit to human lifespan.
Sounds more like a wish than a self-evident truth.
>If anything, the existence of a natural limit should require proof, not the lack of it.
People die, lifetimes of billions have been shown to be capped, both in nature (pre-historical living) and civilization (modern life, diet, etc).
That points to a natural limit. And there are similar numbers/caps for all primates and mammals anyway. That's the very definition to a natural limit.
That doesn't mean an absolute limit, or a specific hard number (like "122") just a limit based on current evolution. E.g. if we modify humans genetically or whatever we might be able to overcome it. But as it is, there absolutely are natural processes towards limiting life span at play and there is a clear cap measured. That's not even contestable.
It is a random number. They could have lived to 122. But 0 have been shown to live to 150, and we're most certain 0 lived to 200 or 500.
There being a natural limit doesn't mean that "largest age found" is the limit. It just means that there's a natural (e.g. cell based) process that kills people with increasing certainty as they age, with a measured cap around 120 years or so.
Whether that can tomorrow or historically been found to be 130 or 150 in some random human that gets/got to be ultra-old doesn't mean it's not statistically more than appplicable to the 99.99% percentile of humans, or that there's no "increasing natural death certainty" with a limit towards 100% as people age.
>Just because all of your data points show the same thing, doesn't make that thing true.
It surely makes the thing statistically true (this is what happens most commonly), and points to processes and factors making it so.
>Oh, your set is all human lives ever recorded? Meh... Doesn't mean a thing. Your set is too small.
Huh? "Too small" compared to what? One that would include humans in prehistory or pre-modern-registries that might have lived more? (And we do know that they lived less too, even if they're not recorded, from the bodies/bones/etc. records we have).
Rather, the dataset is huge, and (after 20th century or so, where globally registry records are kept) close to exhaustive. Statistically if anything it's much more than required.
>To me, it is self-evident that there is no natural limit to human lifespan.
Sounds more like a wish than a self-evident truth.
>If anything, the existence of a natural limit should require proof, not the lack of it.
People die, lifetimes of billions have been shown to be capped, both in nature (pre-historical living) and civilization (modern life, diet, etc).
That points to a natural limit. And there are similar numbers/caps for all primates and mammals anyway. That's the very definition to a natural limit.
That doesn't mean an absolute limit, or a specific hard number (like "122") just a limit based on current evolution. E.g. if we modify humans genetically or whatever we might be able to overcome it. But as it is, there absolutely are natural processes towards limiting life span at play and there is a clear cap measured. That's not even contestable.