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People who had this mutation could have died of causes other than aging.

commandlinefan 6y ago
My first thought too - maybe it's just wishful thinking, but the bible does talk about people who lived for thousands of years. We're prone to dismiss this as hyperbole from uneducated ancients, but maybe they actually did exist and this sort of thing was why.
- jjoonathan 6y ago
  "Someone slipped up the distinction between years and generations and a legend was born" still seems enormously more probable than anomalous longevity existing but somehow never making it into the wider gene pool.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Do you (they) mean "distinction between years and months"? That would be between solar cycles and lunar cycles: seems enticing. That would make Methuselah 80yo when he reportedly died; but there are problems still as Seth (for example) became a father at 105, which if it were months would be 8¾ years. Another possibility is that when it says Methuselah it just means "Methuselah's blood line" or "Methuselah the tribe"; it's a Hebraic thing (elsewhere in the OT) to refer to a tribe as if referring to the founding person. Or, the person writing down the numbers used a different system, through error or otherwise.
    - jjoonathan 6y ago
      Yeah, they would both account for being off by a factor of 10-20. As would any of a dozen other simple mistakes or embellishments, in all likelihood. IIRC the Skeptic's Annotated Bible has a bunch of direct numerical self-inconsistencies if one needs proof that this sort of slipup is possible, which one shouldn't, because of course it is.
- holtalanm 6y ago
  > the bible does talk about people who lived for thousands of years I don't remember anyone mentioned living for _thousands_ of years. There are plenty of characters that live for hundreds, though. It is believed that Abraham lived to the age of 175, while I believe there was one character that lived into the 300's, but I do not recall their name. It has been a while since I delved into the old testament.
  - lm28469 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah > Said to have died at the age of 969, he lived the longest of all figures mentioned in the Bible.
    - holtalanm 6y ago
      that name rings a bell now that I see it. thanks! edit: Found it on the wikipedia page you linked. I was thinking about Enoch, Methuselah's father, who lived to be 365 years old according to the bible.
    - twodave 6y ago
      Interestingly, Methuselah died the same year that the Flood happened, so you might assume he would have lived longer had his grandson not been instructed to build a party boat that he wasn't invited to...
    - Cactus2018 6y ago
      Nota bene, lunar year vs solar year
    - Unknown_Unknown 6y ago
      I believe in Islam Noah is believed to have lived 950 years. It took him a long time to build the arch. The other story mentioned in the Quran is about a group of people and their dog who slept in a cave for 309 years and woke up afterwards. I believe they died shortly after. There is an actual chapter in the quran about this called the cave[1]. [1] https://www.clearquran.com/018.html https://www.clearquran.com/018.html
SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
On a long enough timeline, can't we assume that pretty much everyone is going to die of cancer?
- TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
  Elephants are massive, and have a very large number of cells compared to humans, yet their rates of cancer aren't higher than ours. Research indicates that it may be due to TP53, a cancer suppression gene that is repeated a ton in the elephant. I could see anti-aging therapy eventually being used in conjunction with gene therapy to strengthen our own tumor suppression capacity.
- James_Henry 6y ago
  The body, when it is healthy, generally kills cancerous cells on its own. This is, from what I understand why many cancers come with sickness/age, because your body doesn't react as robustly to broken cells as it did in health and youth. Something like "age reduction" could end up being a cure for many cancers, one could think.
  - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
    Given that there are cancer's that strike the young as well, I don't know if that would actually work out.
bovermyer 6y ago
People who are immune to aging are not necessarily immune to a cannonball impacting their face.
- Nevermark 6y ago
  If only we could subject enough people to cannonballs we might find one of the super humans I postulate exist. But train wrecks would allow for significantly higher populations per experiment. I must ponder this. They call me Mr...

My first thought too - maybe it's just wishful thinking, but the bible does talk about people who lived for thousands of years. We're prone to dismiss this as hyperbole from uneducated ancients, but maybe they actually did exist and this sort of thing was why.

jjoonathan 6y ago
"Someone slipped up the distinction between years and generations and a legend was born" still seems enormously more probable than anomalous longevity existing but somehow never making it into the wider gene pool.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Do you (they) mean "distinction between years and months"? That would be between solar cycles and lunar cycles: seems enticing. That would make Methuselah 80yo when he reportedly died; but there are problems still as Seth (for example) became a father at 105, which if it were months would be 8¾ years. Another possibility is that when it says Methuselah it just means "Methuselah's blood line" or "Methuselah the tribe"; it's a Hebraic thing (elsewhere in the OT) to refer to a tribe as if referring to the founding person. Or, the person writing down the numbers used a different system, through error or otherwise.
  - jjoonathan 6y ago
    Yeah, they would both account for being off by a factor of 10-20. As would any of a dozen other simple mistakes or embellishments, in all likelihood. IIRC the Skeptic's Annotated Bible has a bunch of direct numerical self-inconsistencies if one needs proof that this sort of slipup is possible, which one shouldn't, because of course it is.
holtalanm 6y ago
> the bible does talk about people who lived for thousands of years I don't remember anyone mentioned living for _thousands_ of years. There are plenty of characters that live for hundreds, though. It is believed that Abraham lived to the age of 175, while I believe there was one character that lived into the 300's, but I do not recall their name. It has been a while since I delved into the old testament.
- lm28469 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah > Said to have died at the age of 969, he lived the longest of all figures mentioned in the Bible.
  - holtalanm 6y ago
    that name rings a bell now that I see it. thanks! edit: Found it on the wikipedia page you linked. I was thinking about Enoch, Methuselah's father, who lived to be 365 years old according to the bible.
  - twodave 6y ago
    Interestingly, Methuselah died the same year that the Flood happened, so you might assume he would have lived longer had his grandson not been instructed to build a party boat that he wasn't invited to...
  - Cactus2018 6y ago
    Nota bene, lunar year vs solar year
  - Unknown_Unknown 6y ago
    I believe in Islam Noah is believed to have lived 950 years. It took him a long time to build the arch. The other story mentioned in the Quran is about a group of people and their dog who slept in a cave for 309 years and woke up afterwards. I believe they died shortly after. There is an actual chapter in the quran about this called the cave[1]. [1] https://www.clearquran.com/018.html https://www.clearquran.com/018.html

SketchySeaBeast 6y ago

On a long enough timeline, can't we assume that pretty much everyone is going to die of cancer?

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
Elephants are massive, and have a very large number of cells compared to humans, yet their rates of cancer aren't higher than ours. Research indicates that it may be due to TP53, a cancer suppression gene that is repeated a ton in the elephant. I could see anti-aging therapy eventually being used in conjunction with gene therapy to strengthen our own tumor suppression capacity.
James_Henry 6y ago
The body, when it is healthy, generally kills cancerous cells on its own. This is, from what I understand why many cancers come with sickness/age, because your body doesn't react as robustly to broken cells as it did in health and youth. Something like "age reduction" could end up being a cure for many cancers, one could think.
- SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
  Given that there are cancer's that strike the young as well, I don't know if that would actually work out.

bovermyer 6y ago

People who are immune to aging are not necessarily immune to a cannonball impacting their face.

Nevermark 6y ago
If only we could subject enough people to cannonballs we might find one of the super humans I postulate exist. But train wrecks would allow for significantly higher populations per experiment. I must ponder this. They call me Mr...