Why People Don't Live Past 114 916
kkleiner writes "Average life expectancy has nearly doubled in developed countries over the 20th century. But a puzzling part to the equation has emerged. While humans are in fact living longer lives on average, the oldest age that the oldest people reach seems to be stubbornly and oddly precisely cemented right at 114. What will it take for humans to live beyond this limit?"
Genesis 6:3 (Score:4, Informative)
And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.
The oldest person lived to 122. (Score:4, Informative)
No, I didn't read the article. It really doesn't matter. 114 is not some magic barrier.
Additional information. (Score:5, Informative)
Tell that to Jeanne Calment (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_person [wikipedia.org]
Re:Tell that to Jeanne Calment (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_person [wikipedia.org]
You would have a job doing that as she is dead. :)
yet more biblical contradictions (Score:4, Informative)
Re:yet more biblical contradictions (Score:4, Informative)
He died before the limit was imposed. Prior to that, many people lived hundreds of years, such as Adam.
Re:Tell that to Jeanne Calment (Score:4, Informative)
Exactly you would see a LOT of 113's in this list. Instead you see many almost making 115 and a few as high as 120.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_people#Chronological_list_of_the_verified_oldest_living_person_since_1955
It looks like summary is trying to pull in clicks by challenging and making sweeping statements. When it is trivial to prove it wrong. Also the article ends with "Just my two cents for what they’re worth". So this is an opinion piece.
The 99.999% percentile though will probably not make it past 100. Supercenturions are fairly rare...
Go ahead and look at the Wikipedia article. Unsurprisingly, a number of the > 114 yo crowd have their birth dates as 'disputed'. So, no you didn't 'prove it wrong'.
Precisely "cemented" at 114 ? (Score:2, Informative)
Mod parent up (Score:5, Informative)
I for one love the Bible, and I found this hilarious, not trollish.
Re:Genesis 6:3 (Score:5, Informative)
Just fast forward to Song of Solomon. It has plenty of tits for you.
Re:yet more biblical contradictions (Score:2, Informative)
Re:yet more biblical contradictions (Score:4, Informative)
Rather than being immortal. So yes, he traded immortality for a sure death in the indeterminate future. Interpretation is fun.
Re:Genesis 6:3 (Score:2, Informative)
Clearly, you fail metaphor.
If you search to the ends of the Earth, I suspect you'll find someone who can elaborate on it. Until then, I suggest Job 26:7.
Matthew 6:4 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:yet more biblical contradictions (Score:5, Informative)
Ok, my bad, the word is yom, it can mean day or afternoon or age or daily or eternity or entire or lifetime or long or perpetually... the word doesn't translate well to a term we have in English, but in short, it roughly translates as "when you eat from the tree you will die". Also, even if you assume the 24 hour day is the correct translation, in a very real sense, Adam did die at that point even if it took time for him to physically die. The Bible clearly refers to both spiritual death and physical death and the spiritual death was at the time of eating from the tree.
Re:Genesis 6:3 (Score:5, Informative)
Could have sworn the protestant reformation had something to say about that practice.
Re:yet more biblical contradictions (Score:2, Informative)
Aside from all the other explainations given here (he DID die, eventually), there is another meaning, that he died a spiritual death on that day-- which is referenced in the new testament (hebrews?) where it talks about how through one man we all died. Clearly what is in mind isnt simply a physical death, as we are all still walking around.
Re:Genesis 6:3 (Score:5, Informative)
quote fail (Score:4, Informative)
The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long. And you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy.
Re:Is average lifespan a useful metric? (Score:4, Informative)
Here is table backing the above up. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html [infoplease.com] It shows that the average lifespan of someone who survives childhood has increased from 60.1(20 + 40.1) in 1850 to 76.7 (20 + 56.7) in 2004. That is an increase of 16.7 years.
Compare that with a newborn. 38.3 in 1850 to 75.7 in 2004. That is an increase of 37.4 years.
Re:Genesis 6:3 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Genesis 6:3 (Score:5, Informative)
And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.
Which has nothing to do with how long a human may live, but was a prophecy about the coming flood.
Re:yet more biblical contradictions (Score:2, Informative)
The bible only talks about Sin bringing death to humanity. Animals can't sin, they are locked into their basic nature. (IE: they aren't Sentient) So Lions ate lambs or anything else pretty much like they do today, with the exception that God prevented them from eating his Humans.
It really gets interesting when you think that there is NO indication for how LONG Adam and Eve spent in the garden. We know Adam was around 1000 years old when he finally died, but we don't know how much of that was spent during his "immortal" years. It may very well be that he and Eve only lived for a few years after they ate the fruit, although we know it was long enough to raise Cain and Abel to adulthood..
Re:yet more biblical contradictions (Score:4, Informative)
Re:yet more biblical contradictions (Score:5, Informative)
This is like arguing if Superman can beat Spiderman.
Yeah, accepting that superheros are real and superpowers are real and the Marvel universe is real and the D.C. universe is real... ok Superman can beat Spiderman.
List of Oldest People (Score:4, Informative)
Wikipedia has a list of the oldest people in the world. [wikipedia.org]. 27 of them got older than 114 (only three of them disputed) and one of them is still alive.
So... "nothing to see here, move along..."
Re:The oldest person lived to 122. (Score:5, Informative)
The question is if there's a "knee" in the curve around 114. Maybe, but I don't think we've even got enough data to say for sure.
More like a crunch where it all really collapses. I have some mortality data [www.ssb.no] from Norway here, "Dødssannsynlighet for alder x" = "Death probability at age x" in parts of 1000, "Begge kjønn" = "Both sexes". Already around 98 years it's up to over 30% per year but it doesn't continue the collapse, it stays in the 30-40% range up until 105 in this table and as I understood it up to 114. Of course with only 60-70% surviving each year the chance of living from 98 to 114 is 0.65^16 = 0.1%, but right now 114 looks very close to a cutoff. That perhaps now it's an additional cause of death, not just the sum of everything that's affected "younger" hundred and something year olds.
Re:Genesis 6:3 (Score:5, Informative)
and also Larry Niven (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pak_Protector [wikipedia.org]
Re:yet more biblical contradictions (Score:4, Informative)
Re:yet more biblical contradictions (Score:4, Informative)
There is still theological debate though if animals truly were not sentient in the GoE. One would think Eve would have been surprised at the prospect of a talking snake, but she didn't even begin to question the validity of this. When Adam found out about the snakes advice he didn't even question the validity of the story.
It is because of this that it is thought animals were significantly different before the fall, possibly more akin to Angels than how we know them today.
Re:yet more biblical contradictions (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe this is a different interpretation, given my Jewish and not Christian upbringing, but I learned that after Adam and Eve ate the apple, they realized they were naked and clothed themselves. God came walking by (metaphorically speaking) and they hid. He asked where they were not because He didn't know, but because it was a test. Adam and Eve revealed themselves and God asked why they ate the fruit of the tree. Here, He was giving them a chance to repent their sins, but they chose to blame each other. Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the snake. (Not sure it's recorded who the snake blamed.) Only after they chose not to repent (especially having now learned good from evil), did they get their punishments.
Like I said, though, this might be different interpretations from different religious perspectives. Christianity is big on the "Fall of Man" in Eden leading up to Jesus sacrificing himself to absolve that sin. Judaism, meanwhile, is big on repenting as a means of absolving sins. (See: Yom Kippur when Jews fast and repent in order to have our sins from the past year forgiven.)