34116YuNoHaHoDe31 Although Life Expectancy Doubled
Q&@
OVER
THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS,
IT IS UNWARRENTED TO EXTRAPOLATE
AND CONCLUDE THAT WE CAN DOUBLE IT AGAIN
TO 150 IN THE COMING CENTURY? In 1900 global life expectancy
was no higher than 40 because many people died young from malnutrition,
infectious diseases and violence!
Yet those who escaped famine,
plague & war could live well into their seventies and eighties,
which is the natural life span of Homo sapiens?! Contrary to common notions, seventy-year-olds
weren't considered rare freaks of nature in previous centuries. Galileo Galilei died at 77, Isaac
Newton at 84, & Michel Angelo lived to the ripe age of 88, without any help from antibiotics,
vaccinations or organ transplants. Indeed, even chimpanzees
in the jungle sometimes live into their sixties...
In truth, so far modern medicine
hasn't extended our natural life span by a single year!
It's great achievement has been to save us from PREMATURE death, and allow us to enjoy
the full measure of our years. Even if we overcome cancer, diabetes and the other major killers,
it would mean only that almost everyone will get to live to ninety - but it will not be enough
to reach 150, let alone 500! For that, medicine will need to re-engineer
the most fundamental structures and processes of the human body,
and discover how to regenerate
organs & tissues. It is by no
means clear that we
can do that
by 2100
...
THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS,
IT IS UNWARRENTED TO EXTRAPOLATE
AND CONCLUDE THAT WE CAN DOUBLE IT AGAIN
TO 150 IN THE COMING CENTURY? In 1900 global life expectancy
was no higher than 40 because many people died young from malnutrition,
infectious diseases and violence!
Yet those who escaped famine,
plague & war could live well into their seventies and eighties,
which is the natural life span of Homo sapiens?! Contrary to common notions, seventy-year-olds
weren't considered rare freaks of nature in previous centuries. Galileo Galilei died at 77, Isaac
Newton at 84, & Michel Angelo lived to the ripe age of 88, without any help from antibiotics,
vaccinations or organ transplants. Indeed, even chimpanzees
in the jungle sometimes live into their sixties...
In truth, so far modern medicine
hasn't extended our natural life span by a single year!
It's great achievement has been to save us from PREMATURE death, and allow us to enjoy
the full measure of our years. Even if we overcome cancer, diabetes and the other major killers,
it would mean only that almost everyone will get to live to ninety - but it will not be enough
to reach 150, let alone 500! For that, medicine will need to re-engineer
the most fundamental structures and processes of the human body,
and discover how to regenerate
organs & tissues. It is by no
means clear that we
can do that
by 2100
...
11 mrt 2019 - bewerkt op 14 mrt 2019
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