Why People Don't Live Past 114

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Why People Don't Live Past 114

Posted by timothy on Thursday February 16, 2012 @01:48AM from the mostly-it's-because-of-tax-benefits dept.

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?"

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Genesis 6:3 by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-16 01:50 · 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.
1. Re:Genesis 6:3 by AJH16 · 2012-02-16 02:43 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Just fast forward to Song of Solomon. It has plenty of tits for you.
  
  --
  AJ Henderson
2. Re:Genesis 6:3 by Empiric · 2012-02-16 02:54 · Score: 1, 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.
  
  --
  ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
3. Re:Genesis 6:3 by LordLimecat · 2012-02-16 03:29 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Could have sworn the protestant reformation had something to say about that practice.
4. Re:Genesis 6:3 by stating_the_obvious · 2012-02-16 03:36 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Length of life (in years) dropped from 120 years to 114 years when the Romans added August to the Calendar...
5. Re:Genesis 6:3 by Dzimas · 2012-02-16 03:55 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  And Psalms 90:10 cheerfully pegs the number at 70: "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away." Doesn't seem like a very reliable scientific text to me. ;)
6. Re:Genesis 6:3 by sglewis100 · 2012-02-16 03:57 · 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.
7. Re:Genesis 6:3 by voidphoenix · 2012-02-16 04:44 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  January and February were added to the calendar. July and August were just renamed, from Quintilis and Sextilis.
  
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The oldest person lived to 122. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-16 01:51 · Score: 4, Informative

No, I didn't read the article. It really doesn't matter. 114 is not some magic barrier.
1. Re:The oldest person lived to 122. by Kjella · 2012-02-16 04:29 · Score: 4, 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 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.
  
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Additional information. by olsmeister · 2012-02-16 01:52 · Score: 5, Informative

This has been noticed before. Here is another article on it.
Tell that to Jeanne Calment by characterZer0 · 2012-02-16 01:53 · Score: 5, Informative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_person

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1. Re:Tell that to Jeanne Calment by dredwerker · 2012-02-16 01:56 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_person
  You would have a job doing that as she is dead. :)
  
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  On a long enough timeline. The survival rate for everyone drops to zero. Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1996
2. Re:Tell that to Jeanne Calment by ColdWetDog · 2012-02-16 02:23 · Score: 3, 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'.
  
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yet more biblical contradictions by damn_registrars · 2012-02-16 02:06 · Score: 3, Informative

So if the lord limited humans to 120, why did Methuselah get 8 times that much time?

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1. Re:yet more biblical contradictions by djdanlib · 2012-02-16 02:15 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  He died before the limit was imposed. Prior to that, many people lived hundreds of years, such as Adam.
2. Re:yet more biblical contradictions by josh609 · 2012-02-16 02:44 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  He did die........If he hadn't ate of that fruit it is believed he would have lived forever.
3. Re:yet more biblical contradictions by sjames · 2012-02-16 02:45 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Rather than being immortal. So yes, he traded immortality for a sure death in the indeterminate future. Interpretation is fun.
4. Re:yet more biblical contradictions by AJH16 · 2012-02-16 03:20 · 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.
  
  --
  AJ Henderson
5. Re:yet more biblical contradictions by LordLimecat · 2012-02-16 03:33 · Score: 1, 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.
6. Re:yet more biblical contradictions by d3ac0n · 2012-02-16 04:06 · Score: 1, 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..
  
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7. Re:yet more biblical contradictions by operagost · 2012-02-16 04:15 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  I'm not sure why someone gave this a "Funny" mod. Methuselah dies in chapter 5, God's proclamation is in chapter 6, following the flood. He didn't even have to be "grandfathered" in, if you'll excuse the pun.
  
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8. Re:yet more biblical contradictions by hoggoth · 2012-02-16 04:16 · Score: 4, 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.
  
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9. Re:yet more biblical contradictions by DC2088 · 2012-02-16 05:28 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Are you joking with me? Genesis 3:22. ""Lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever ..." therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden." As for the "Not a good/evil thing", if you had absolutely NO moral faculties, would you know whether to trust glowy beard guy versus snake and sexy rib woman? Just because someone tells you something is wrong, if you have no sense of morality whatsoever, you'll take their word for it? Don't answer that, actually. I think I know the answer. :(
10. Re:yet more biblical contradictions by maple_shaft · 2012-02-16 06:05 · Score: 3, 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.
11. Re:yet more biblical contradictions by Jason+Levine · 2012-02-16 07:06 · Score: 4, 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.)
  
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Precisely "cemented" at 114 ? by aepervius · 2012-02-16 02:25 · Score: 1, Informative

Do I need to bother reading the article, since the oldest person ever alive was 122 ?

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Mod parent up by tigre · 2012-02-16 02:35 · Score: 5, Informative

I for one love the Bible, and I found this hilarious, not trollish.
Matthew 6:4 by tepples · 2012-02-16 03:17 · Score: 5, Informative

Some Christian denominations have become more sane about this. Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, don't "pass the hat". Instead, people discreetly put their donations in a slot in a box outside the auditorium so that only the Father needs to see (Matthew 6:4).
quote fail by Palshife · 2012-02-16 03:46 · Score: 3, Informative

The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long. And you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy.

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Re:Is average lifespan a useful metric? by ZombieBraintrust · 2012-02-16 03:48 · Score: 3, Informative

Here is table backing the above up. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html 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.
List of Oldest People by Arrepiadd · 2012-02-16 04:17 · Score: 3, Informative

Wikipedia has a list of the oldest people in the world.. 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..."
and also Larry Niven by MRe_nl · 2012-02-16 05:07 · Score: 3, Informative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pak_Protector

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