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Ahh, yes, the fallacy of using history to predict the future, with math. This is a fun kind of math problem, but it completely ignores a huge wildcard, namely,

Ahh, yes, the fallacy of using history to predict the future, with math. This is a fun kind of math problem, but it completely ignores a huge wildcard, namely, human ingenuity and technology. These kinds of predictions have been toppled many times before simply because they aren't about reality (biological or physical properties), rather they are just calculations about ethereal things. Sometimes mathematics maps on to the physical world in startling good ways (the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics"), but biology isn't physics, and human life span is as much social and technological as it is biological. Of course, history is probably our best tool to make such estimations (we don't have any better guides)... until it isn't (that day some new wonder drug is invented, or some new artificial body, etc)

andrewstuart2 11y ago
> The fallacy of using history to predict the future, with math. You say that as if we have anything aside from the past that we can use to make predictions.
- cookingrobot 11y ago
  You can look at the mechanics of the thing you're studying and make predictions based on what's possible. Like if you were watching the development of the space program you could make a prediction about when we'd get to the moon, without just looking at the historical top speed of airplanes we'd built before.
  - murbard2 11y ago
    Yes but that's still using the past. All we have to work with, in order to formulate scientific theories, are correlations and patterns detected at some point in the past. Of course, some correlations and patterns are much stronger than others, and we can be more confident in the predictions they yield. So really the fallacy is about using too weak a model to predict the future.
- quinndupont 11y ago
  Yeah, we don't really (other than, perhaps, physical experiments as cookingrobot's reply suggests). I think such investigations are fun, but also presuppose a very misguided concept of the human and sociality.
51Cards 11y ago
This article is just a math lesson on exponential decay using human mortality trends as an example. The author states the following in the article: Exponential decay is sharp, but an exponential within an exponential is so sharp that I can say with 99.999999% certainty that no human will ever live to the age of 130. (Ignoring, of course, the upward shift in the lifetime distribution that will result from future medical advances)
- quinndupont 11y ago
  I'm pretty sure the author is referring to the shift in distribution (the movement of the curve), not that medical advances will one day make us able to live past 130 (otherwise the whole point is moot).
digikata 11y ago
i.e. don't confuse a statistical characterization of the data with more fundamental physical processes from which the statistics arise. Though that said, is there a scientific way to categorize the difference between models for one vs another without a human looking at the situation and trying to decide?
epistasis 11y ago
>but biology isn't physics, and human life span is as much social and technological as it is biological. The only way this statement has basis in fact is if you're talking about lifespans that are less than 80-100 years. Clearly there are large technological and social influences on early termination of life. But there's pretty much no basis for asserting technological influence on the other end of the spectrum.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  A growing number of Americans are living to age 100. Nationwide, the centenarian population has grown 65.8 percent over the past three decades, from 32,194 people who were age 100 or older in 1980 to 53,364 centenarians in 2010, according to new Census Bureau data. In contrast, the total population has increased 36.3 percent over the same time period. [0] If this hasn't been the result of social and technological factors, what has caused it? [0] http://money.usnews.com/money/retirement/articles/2013/01/07/what-people-who-live-to-100-have-in-common http://money.usnews.com/money/retirement/articles/2013/01/07...

andrewstuart2 11y ago

> The fallacy of using history to predict the future, with math. You say that as if we have anything aside from the past that we can use to make predictions.

cookingrobot 11y ago
You can look at the mechanics of the thing you're studying and make predictions based on what's possible. Like if you were watching the development of the space program you could make a prediction about when we'd get to the moon, without just looking at the historical top speed of airplanes we'd built before.
- murbard2 11y ago
  Yes but that's still using the past. All we have to work with, in order to formulate scientific theories, are correlations and patterns detected at some point in the past. Of course, some correlations and patterns are much stronger than others, and we can be more confident in the predictions they yield. So really the fallacy is about using too weak a model to predict the future.
quinndupont 11y ago
Yeah, we don't really (other than, perhaps, physical experiments as cookingrobot's reply suggests). I think such investigations are fun, but also presuppose a very misguided concept of the human and sociality.

51Cards 11y ago

This article is just a math lesson on exponential decay using human mortality trends as an example. The author states the following in the article: Exponential decay is sharp, but an exponential within an exponential is so sharp that I can say with 99.999999% certainty that no human will ever live to the age of 130. (Ignoring, of course, the upward shift in the lifetime distribution that will result from future medical advances)

quinndupont 11y ago
I'm pretty sure the author is referring to the shift in distribution (the movement of the curve), not that medical advances will one day make us able to live past 130 (otherwise the whole point is moot).

digikata 11y ago

i.e. don't confuse a statistical characterization of the data with more fundamental physical processes from which the statistics arise. Though that said, is there a scientific way to categorize the difference between models for one vs another without a human looking at the situation and trying to decide?

epistasis 11y ago

>but biology isn't physics, and human life span is as much social and technological as it is biological. The only way this statement has basis in fact is if you're talking about lifespans that are less than 80-100 years. Clearly there are large technological and social influences on early termination of life. But there's pretty much no basis for asserting technological influence on the other end of the spectrum.

jessaustin 11y ago
A growing number of Americans are living to age 100. Nationwide, the centenarian population has grown 65.8 percent over the past three decades, from 32,194 people who were age 100 or older in 1980 to 53,364 centenarians in 2010, according to new Census Bureau data. In contrast, the total population has increased 36.3 percent over the same time period. [0] If this hasn't been the result of social and technological factors, what has caused it? [0] http://money.usnews.com/money/retirement/articles/2013/01/07/what-people-who-live-to-100-have-in-common http://money.usnews.com/money/retirement/articles/2013/01/07...