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my theory why we have such short lifespans


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1) It may be that your close-reading/research capabilities are not serving you well. Had you made the effort to explore the second reference, you would have found the following:

For example, the microscopic fossil shown on the left below comes from 2 billion year old rock.

This second reference was intentionally provided in order to clarify the initial quote and reference to waterborne microbes.

http://evolution.ber...stfossils.shtml

2) This next section would appear to be composed of yet another round of incoherent linguistic play.

3) Credentials - Are we then to take this section as a confirmation of the fact that you do not, indeed, have any legitimate training or experience in the fields in which you profess to be qualified?

4) Re: Dating. It would appear that this would contain a quote from another source. Three points. 1) Quoting a source without citation is considered plagiarism. This is highly frowned upon both professionally and within these pages. In more rigorous environments, your career could be over. 2) From the phrasing of this reference, it would not appear to come from a qualified source. 3) Given the date figure presented in the reference, it would appear to be quite outdated.

5) Questions:

Re: Date of planet. Figures vary somewhat, but they generally fall between ~ 4.5 and 4.6 billion years

http://pubs.usgs.gov...eotime/age.html

Re: First man - Your question here is decidedly vague. Are you referring to Homo sapiens, H. sapiens sapiens, or earlier/co-existing members of the line? For starters, please re-read:

http://anthro.paloma.../mod_homo_4.htm

Re: First land animals - Current research indicates a period circa 380 - 360 million BP. See below:

http://news.uchicago...p?asset_id=1458

http://www.ucmp.berk...ds/tetrafr.html

http://www.livescien...ppearances.html

Re: Earliest controlled use of fire. While there are potential indications of the controlled use of fire as early as 400Kya, there is sound documentation for this practice by 300 - 250 Kya. See below. Also note the meticulous and detailed nature of the research that goes into these determinations.

http://www.tau.ac.il...FireJHE2007.pdf

http://docs.google.c...akteqfvdfU_gChw

And the qualified documentation in support of your position?

Edited to add: And reasonably current. Your fledgling first attempts at documentation, even discounting the bias, are sadly outdated.

.

Calibration? Is Evolution a “series”(saga- collection of “stories“)… of religious celebrations?

Celebrate(defined) : to perform (a sacrament or solemn ceremony) publicly and with appropriate rites .. to honor (as a holiday) especially by solemn ceremonies… to mark (as an anniversary) by festivities or other deviation from routine

In the words of “cool and the gang” ..”celebrate good times.”

Evolutionists have never failed to propagate evolutionary theories (plethoric) as the “cool” way of viewing things. (hip, fly, peer review, assured, composed, coolheaded, deliberate, detached, dispassionate, impassive, imperturbable, levelheaded, nonchalant, philosophical, phlegmatic, placid, quiet, relaxed, self-controlled, self-possessed, serene, stolid, together, tranquil, unagitated, unemotional, unexcited, unflappable, unruffled)

Thus “cool” ( evolution?) and the “gang” ( evolutionists: Individual/collective) have never ceased to interpret “data” as well to “conclude ages”(saga-agas) and through this frivolous unrestrained ignorance of principles and laws of intelligent design they have unyieldingly devised self-interpretive conclusions and “witty rationales” that they self-assuredly parrot as “facts”.

The evolutionists through the years have never “let up” in “celebrating” ( calibrating) “good times”. The times, ages as well as data they appeal to represent “bad interpretations” of “good intelligent design/methodology/chronology.” In their own minds their opinions are “good”. The “gang” agrees that they are good. With this incurable appeal to “what is accepted and popular must be correct” and due to the relegation of any consideration of intelligent design..the “GANG-green” that is evolutionary theory continues to spread.

They consist in and persist in this “illogical and petty” resolve to invalidate any and all intelligent design save their own. They have ever remained in this “mental state” while celebrating any and all “interpretations” that they have came to and subsequently embrace as “word.” Their ideas like the gangrene of religious ideology the world around is introduced to “naïve and impressionable” “kids” so as to deviously mold these ones ( relative to their malleable minds) so as to seek to add to the “cool and the gang.”

Need I remind these ones of the evolutionary celebration that revolved around the Piltdown man.”( this proves that the adult evolutionists are just as naïve and venerable as the “potential evolutionists” represented by their kids):

Reference: Wicipedia “Piltdown man”

The "Piltdown Man" is a famous anthropological hoax concerning the finding of the remains of a previously unknown early human. The hoax find consisted of fragments of a skull and jawbone collected in 1912 from a gravel pit at Piltdown, a village near Uckfield, East Sussex, England. The fragments were thought by many experts of the day to be the fossilised remains of a hitherto unknown form of early man. The Latin name Eoanthropus dawsoni ("Dawson's dawn-man", after the collector Charles Dawson) was given to the specimen. The significance of the specimen remained the subject of controversy until it was exposed in 1953 as a forgery, consisting of the lower jawbone of an orangutan that had been deliberately combined with the skull of a fully developed modern human.

The Piltdown hoax is perhaps the most famous paleontological hoax ever. It has been prominent for two reasons: the attention paid to the issue of human evolution, and the length of time (more than 40 years) that elapsed from its discovery to its full exposure as a forgery.

So called “anthropologists” ..duped for 40 years.

In what ways did the evolutionists calibrate themselves to this “eating of crow”. We do know one thing that the “…“EXPERTS experts of the day (considered this ) to be the fossilised remains of a hitherto unknown form of early man.

They were “hitherto” fooled this despite 40 years of “controversy”..” until it was exposed in 1953 as a forgery,” Thus as this “fossil” was proven false..so to the many interpretations of data accredited to the evolutionist are equally “false-ilized”( false-ified). Where formerly it was “celebrated!” ( the calibration of a human remains with that of animal remains).

Not dissimilar to the religious “effigies” , and despite this lie not being worthy of further “memento” the following image represents the “fossilized burial” of the idea and the subsequent “memorializing” of the “hoax” ( lie, deceit….mental deviance). Notice that this grave marker is not so dissimilar to the many other religious phallic symbols representing the life and subsequent death of religion gone awry.

Evolution= Religious ideal in opposition to intelligent design, purpose and accountability

Piltdown man= The consequence of such “susceptibility” to religious falsity.

However as it is the very nature of religious thought the “calibrations, calibrations, interpretation of data, farce chronologies, and fossilized religious thoughts ( engrained mental dispositions), unchanging repelling of logic etc..,will continue. It will not stop due to lack of mental resolve ( individually/collectively) and the shunning of logical thought.

Until it is abruptly put an end to as the product of the wise and intelligent resolve( resolve of purpose) by a logical and intelligent One whose thoughts are “higher” than the intellectual deficiency of humans.

Thus as it is true of religion it is true of the religion of evolution. A system of beliefs and traditions innate to a group of people. As it is true of religion the evolutionists to have “ performed publicly” their religion. The evolutionists have indeed! Honored “beasts” ( apes , fish, single celled organisms). Exactly as the religious systems of the world have for many thousands of years. They have performed “solemn ceremonies” ( the burial of the lie that was Piltdown man and the subsequent eulogizing of this “beastly” “image”. For upward of 40 years humans with illogical mindsets held this “skull image” in high esteem, revered it, framed religious ideals around it. Even after it was proven to be a hoax they took the time to honor it by burying it and placing a “marker” relative to the “beast.”

And they still claim that their ideas lack mental fortitude. They still claim that their credentials assure that they could not be “duped” again. They have calibrated things. They have researched these things better and now are even more (self) assured.

Fossil record! Ha ha! ( “false all” record…reassert/resort). They persist in living with the “cool gang” in their self-absorbed,, self-maintained and self-built “false resort.“ It is at this mental resort that these ones flock ( F+L+O+C+K= phallic) so as to be “men folk” ( masculine thinkers) and play “golf” ( flog= f+l+o+g…phallic). After a few rounds of golf and after talking insurance next to the “man made” pond that has the duck ( aflak-kalfa-aphallic- caliph-golf) then they come together as the “cool gang” so as to inevitably try to “flog” (golf) the lie out of the truth.

Flog= to beat with or as if with a rod or whip b : to criticize harshly. 2. : to force or urge into action : drive. : to promote aggressively .

Thus it is true, and so long as religious ideas are allowed to remain unrestrained ..the religion that is evolution will continue to :

Promote aggressively the false (phallus) ideas of “chance”

Criticize harshly and arrogantly logic and reasoning ability

Force or urge their religious ideologies on others ( kids at that!). Indeed! Force their religion down peoples throats.

As well:

To beat with or as if a rod or whip…the dickens out of intelligent design.

All must be careful not to succumb to the Piltdown man that is evolution. All must avoid the passivity that allows religious ideas to “go awry.” We need to be resolved to bury the Piltdown man as well forget about it verses treat it as worthy of exhumation or “reverence.

We all need to consider “alternative realities.”

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We all need to consider “alternative realities.”

We should also be aware that the story of the flood in the bible is just that a story, and not observations of a historical nature. This, of course is born out by the knowledge that if Noah and his family truly existed, they died 100-200+ years before Moses was born so Moses could not have received factual information but just stories of a flood that most likely came from the Epics of Gilgamesh and Atrahasis, both earlier writings than that of the bible and both containing their own versions of floods.

Perhaps we should first consider reality

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Perhaps we should first consider reality

I couldn't agree more. Considering "alternate realities" might be in fashion for some people who think it to be ever so cool, but facts are all that matter. And when we have facts to provide answers, "alternate realities" become nothing more than an exercise in intellectual sloth for people who don't understand science and history and don't care to educate themselves. This is fine if the person in question is a nine year old, but we all ought to expert more from adults. What we expect and what we get are often two different things, as is evident in this very discussion. :rolleyes:

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We should also be aware that the story of the flood in the bible is just that a story, and not observations of a historical nature. This, of course is born out by the knowledge that if Noah and his family truly existed, they died 100-200+ years before Moses was born so Moses could not have received factual information but just stories of a flood that most likely came from the Epics of Gilgamesh and Atrahasis, both earlier writings than that of the bible and both containing their own versions of floods.

Perhaps we should first consider reality

Huh?

Have you ever read an American history book allowing us to know the course of American history for over 200 years?

This argument is a strange one indeed.

Abraham was born a mere 2 years after Noah died. Thus Abrahams father Terah life overlapped the life of Noah. Terah perhaps talked to or at least knew of the pre flood world events through Noah as well as his son Shem. Shem lived through the flood and was living for more than a century after Abraham was born. need I go further as to how information is "passed over" ( note the word "Hebrew" means" pass over"; "pass by" "pass across"

It is interesting that the word Phonology is described as : "the way sounds function within a given language or ACROSS LANGUAGES

to encode meaning.

Has the original "meaning" innate to Hebrew went "across languages?" If so: Can scrutinizing phonetics and phonology as encoding meaning as well relative to all modern language systems result in the ability to decode the original language of man?

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Abraham was born a mere 2 years after Noah died. Thus Abrahams father Terah life overlapped the life of Noah. Terah perhaps talked to or at least knew of the pre flood world events through Noah as well as his son Shem. Shem lived through the flood and was living for more than a century after Abraham was born. ...

I note you claims about translating the bible from Greek, along with the fields of study you are knowledgeable in; most of which require a knowledge of applied statistics. I've obsereved you are quite demanding on others to provide data.

I have one simple, and fairly minor, question - how did you calculate a life expectancy (average age) of 969 years for the human population prior to the flood? That is, where is your data?

Additionally, where is this "canopy", you speak of, mentioned? Are you referring to Earth's magnetic field, or something else?

(I hope it's not something akin to the shield descriped in Higlander II: The Quickening. Yes I admit I have seen it)0o. :rolleyes:

Edited by Mangoze
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Oh my gosh, independently of you (or anyone else) I have wondered the exact same thing!

Why are human lifespans so pitifully short?-

We waste so much time and energy each generation, developing (physically, mentally, and educating) a new generation of humans over and over again in such a short timespan it is the equivalent of building a magnificant city only to bomb it to the ground the next day- it makes little sense.

I wondered- is it short because a) we "evolve" quicker by living and breeding new genetic "crosses"- so we are sacrificing and having short lifetimes in order to evolve more quickly?? Like taking the highway instead of the scenic route on a trip? Like trying to make humans "better" because if we had longer lifetimes this would take a heck of a lot longer potentially.

Or is it because (as you said, and I wondered exactly the same possibility of many possibiliites- but never told anyone as people are so closed minded) we are "test bunnies" for another race- a big experiment. I joked to my husband that any experiment that had involved as much suffering as mostly every living and conscious creature endures on planet earth these days to a lesser or further extent, that the experiment should be stopped as it is much, much too cruel and unconsionable. His repy was that, "don't worry, somebody, possibly the Americans will blow us all into non-existence sooner or later.. problem solved".. and I said "Oh, good, that's sooo reassuring, thanks hunny, always there with a comforting word of wisdom LMAO thanks a lot".

I always thought, maybe the "universe" or the "aliens gods" or some powerful agent of the universe would come down and say to every consicous being on the planet- alllright, you guys have suffered enough now- that was all just a test of your courage, morals and strength and you all passed (hence you or your ancestors are allive). Kind of like the endgame to Darwinian theory- a finishing line- where one would become a more "perfect" being and get a lifespan of say, at least 2 or 300 years- shorter than that (the ratio of developmental stage, to consolidation to ending stage- seems unfairly weighted to always be either reaching adulthood or declining rapidly- it sucks to be frank).

I don't think people should live "forever" because having a finite lifetime and a renewal (with the associated "amnesia") is a "safety catch" for endless suffering. I think it is a blessing in diguise, because no matter how much a conscious creature is suffering, the lifespan is finite, and therefore the suffering is finite. Dying and having children is sort of like the movie "50 first dates", each time we have children and die is is like having short and long term memory problems- it's quite bizarre and comical really in a dark comedy sort of way.

Also the same for joy or positive experience- let's say- (and this is a largely inadequate and partly nonsensical analogy, given) a king or queen has a monopoly on most of all that is good in life in a given lifespan- if that person lived forever the probability that the goods or wealth or benefit would be shared is smaller- at least if that person has children and dies, even if they pass along all their wealth (hypothetically) they are giving away at least 50% of it every generation to effectively "someone else" ie. the genes of their spouse in the form of their children- and each generation subsequently will be taking less and less of that person's genes along for the ride after just four generations they have 6.25% of the orginal person's genes (as a very simplistic and not strictly true way of looking at it- but with an important grain of truth). Hence why some monarchy's interbred with their own relatives- but happily we know doing that long term ensures a high degree of genetic failure and is unsustainable. Heck, even if someone was vain enough to clone themselves, they would be missing out on the directionality of evolution.

It also makes me incredibly sick to my stomach to think I don't remember the last ten-thousand years of my own existence as lived by my ancestors (yes I have always thought that some form of intergenerational memory carry over directly in the brain was a good idea) let alone the last million. Years of re-learning the same crap, doing the same crap (admittedly once again, it might be a blessing in disguise). In fact- look at the 27 years old CLUB- ie. the cult of people (usually celebraties) but also regular people- who have had enough of life by about age 27- and also the Brazilian native Indian tribes for example- traditional living (previously undisturbed by outside cultures for 1000s of years possibly)- in this case they usually commit ritual suicide using a palm poison by their late twenties or early thirites- they say they do it because they miss their dead relatives and they want to join them- that also- but they are also admittedly probably bored of life by that age. So it is a cross-cultural phenomenon. In fact, if people had lived incredibly long life spans with the current set of biology that we have and the current circumstances it might drive us from our sanity. But in modern life, if we could have some carry-over in our brains of our ancestors memories in some sort of balanced and intergrated way, we would be more infornmed, more whole, less lonely, less likely to repeat mistakes, and have a richness of experience to draw upon that dwarfs anything we can currently even imagine- and these native brazilian tribes people, celebrites pop-stars and many other people, would probably stop "topping" themselves so soon. It would open up the way for us to live longer and have a better time doing so.

ironically, this being demonstrated (by a whole tribe, by celebrities, and countless others)- it seems that we also have to evolve our way past a weariness of life that makes us long for death on occasion after a certain age.

We are all (on average) attracted to the most "average" human face (according to a scientific study) and so it seems that when we choose a mate, they have features that will bring our own features closer to the "middle" of the global human gene pool. Some people go for a version of themselves (very similar) with a slight tweak in a direction, others choose someone dramatically different- either way they are looking for balancing genes. On a global scale it seems rather like tieing in threads of a piece of cloth- it is one thing to have the piece of fibres next to you connected, but the material become stronger when you have threads that go end-to-end.

Anyway, I have lot's of thoughts about these things, and I have always felt trapped in a shorter lifespan than I was supposed to have, once I got to age 25-26 I felt like I should have remained in a steady state of adulthood physiologically for a good 20-70 years longer or more. I always thought 200-300 years would do me, as long as I remained in good health, and everyone else also aged in the same fashion.

I always felt like we should have evolved further by now, and that we are "held back" some how as a species. I hope future generations "crack" the code of allowing us to live like we are supposed to. I feel like naturally, with no intervention, we should live longer- that is my genuine belief- and that is it wasn't for "something" don't ask me what- that we would.

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There are so many snide, harsh, acerbic and thoughtless comments in reply to the original topic. I have never heard so many, unimaginative people with closed minds, eyes that only look in one direction, ready to accept with full faith (and yes faith is not a "positivisitcally rational" thing) the theories put forward by other people to close their minds to every other idea nobody has a monopoly on ideas (these supposedly only to the wrongful exclusion of all others 'credible' sources who happen to be in universities etc. funded with $$$) who happen to be made credible by "insititutions" as if powerful people and groups who create insitiutions and the the most trustworthy people on earth (nice joke). My god- have some imagination people, and stop taking as gospel everything someone else tells you- that includes things who read in science books and "scientific theories" that are new or hundreds of years old. Listen to what they day- THEN THINK for yourself, USE your imagination, TEST things for yourself. LISTEN to your gut instinct- it tells you more truth than others would otherwise have you believe. Believe in your own ideas, and even if they are a work in progress, discussion not snide comments and shutting down- because not one of you who made snide comments has abosolute proof either of your own theories being right, or anyone else's being wrong..Discussion should be open, humble and unbiased.. OPENNESS AND IMAGINATION ARE KEY because we are, all , after all, just humans.. and all flawed and cannot possibly know even one tiny piece of the whole truth of the universe which is at present (althought we have made some small and impressive inroads) mostly not within our means to understand :D most of all be loving to each other, even in discussion with strangers on the internet .. also, everything in human progress starts with an idea. lot's of brilliant inventions that seemed ludicrous and unthinkable in the distant past came from FICTION, the imagination and people with open minds, to dream the impossible dream.. and then it happens

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sigh - think London before motorcars were invented - people agonized that London streets will be buried in horse manure

if we had the lifespan we would definitely be space explorers and start colonizing other places - perhaps some of the moons would be good to live on?

life-span is a major obstacle to our space exploration efforts

also think about it - if you lived to a thousand years but had the youth and vitality of a 25 year old for most of that time - you would never be poor!

a lot of ppl manage to get a few things by the time they retire - own home perhaps, a bit of investments perhaps. Imagine if instead of retirement you could plan to start having a family AFTER you pay your home off and create some passive income for yourself

imagine having a career first and then planning to take time to have a family - these days for women it is often an either/or - either have a career or have a family, as it is very difficult to have both

we are also fast heading to a situation where one college degree is not enough so a lot of people have 2 college degrees and they pay off their student loans forever - think if your lifespan was so much longer so that you did not have to try and fit it all in the exact same 30 years

the prime of life to me is the time that elite athletes and top models are at the top of their chosen field and if they start at age 15 they typically look for other things to do before they are 30 years old - that is such a small slice of life that humans are at their peak

I would like humans to be at their peak for a whole lot longer - think what we would achieve - the discoveries our scientists could make, the songs that someone could write and perform - think of ABBA, they disbanded because they were working too hard producing 1 album a year [and personal difficulties too off course] and if they lived to age 1000 they could take 20 years off and then record again and still be looking as fresh as they did when they were the hottest group in many countries [there is talk of them performing together once again but they wont be as visually appealing as they were before]

I see positives - not everyone will want to have a baby every year for 1000 years - that is a huge family. if you have the lifespan you can plan to do so much more with your life and there is no reason to think that we will all live on earth forever

I want to live longer longer

Could we then evolve our brains to handle more data over time (exactly like the way our brains handle more than a monkey, or say a fruit fly's brain would)- we will just have to evolve bigger more efficient brains to keep up with our longer lives- similar to the analogy of the way we are upgrading our computer techology's processing and memory capacity. I think we have a long way to go in terms of brain processing and memory evolution. Because otherwise, you are exactly right, we won't have the capacity to comprehend what will seem like incredibly fast moving events even those of our own human lives we- perhaps to the point that like electron flickers, it would move so fast we couldn't even see it because our eyes are attuned to our brain, and our brains are attuned to long time spans, we would have to evolve our brain for sure.. can do I say.. we've done it before.. we can do it ..again. ..maybe we will become a hive mind to improve these capacities similar to how computers are moving towards cloud style technology to improve processing and memory capacities and availability of data etc.

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The good news is that probably at 25 a person can expect with medical advances in progress to live twice as long as their parents. Maybe to 150 years or more, because as you age, even more advances will be made, further pushing out your lifespan.

The bad news is that telling people to be Open and Imaginative is all very good, but without evidence you're just spouting out Opinion. An arguement that is Unsupported.

I do believe the human race is quickly being changed by our environments. As a whole, we are loosing our eyesight and hair rapidly, and we are moving less on average. And we are using our brains in ways that our hunter/gatherer forefathers could not have imagined. Thus evolution will support those whos brain works better with a computer, as he/she will have a better income and a more secure life, and have more opportunities and better resources to raise children.

It is just like breeding dogs. A new breed can be developed actually very quickly, and they can sometimes appear nothing at all like their parent breeds. Humans are adapting to their enviroment... being breed for their enviroment... very quickly.

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The good news is that probably at 25 a person can expect with medical advances in progress to live twice as long as their parents. Maybe to 150 years or more, because as you age, even more advances will be made, further pushing out your lifespan.

The bad news is that telling people to be Open and Imaginative is all very good, but without evidence you're just spouting out Opinion. An arguement that is Unsupported.

Agreed on both points. There's no room for imagination in science (or in the scientific aspects of history). The current consensus opinion is always what the evidence seems to indicate. If we learn something different based on new evidence, the science changes to incorporate. Insisting on that evidence instead of haring down the trail of every imaginable hypothesis is not having a closed mind.

I do believe the human race is quickly being changed by our environments. As a whole, we are loosing our eyesight and hair rapidly, and we are moving less on average. And we are using our brains in ways that our hunter/gatherer forefathers could not have imagined. Thus evolution will support those whos brain works better with a computer, as he/she will have a better income and a more secure life, and have more opportunities and better resources to raise children.

It is just like breeding dogs. A new breed can be developed actually very quickly, and they can sometimes appear nothing at all like their parent breeds. Humans are adapting to their enviroment... being breed for their enviroment... very quickly.

I don't know, man. Organized-brained people don't seem to run around making babies everywhere they spend more than a couple of nights in a row. Stupid people... do. Since our tech and social safety nets mean these babies don't actually DIE due to the incompetence of the parents, I don't know if that evolutionary pressure will favor the egghead. Add in the fact that we'll need a helluva cultural revolution before being good with computers actually gives someone more opportunities to have sex than, say, having weed in your pocket and I believe it's a safe bet that the popularity of Star Trek conventions isn't going to explode with the next generation of young people.

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Oh my gosh, independently of you (or anyone else) I have wondered the exact same thing!

Why are human lifespans so pitifully short?

Compared to what?

You're asking a loaded and subjective question, even if it is just rhetoric.

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I think the reason why humans have a short life span is very simple. If people live for too long, we will overpopulate and use all resources up. This is already happening due to people living to just 75. Modern medicine has extended the lifespan and now generations are sticking of top of one another, causing havic to the Earth

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I think the reason why humans have a short life span is very simple. If people live for too long, we will overpopulate and use all resources up. This is already happening due to people living to just 75. Modern medicine has extended the lifespan and now generations are sticking of top of one another, causing havic to the Earth

Although modern medicine has done marvels...

The invention of flushing toilets and sanitary sewer systems, clean drinking water, and readily available food has done a lot too.

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Although modern medicine has done marvels...

The invention of flushing toilets and sanitary sewer systems, clean drinking water, and readily available food has done a lot too.

In fact, clean drinking water was one of the most important health-related accomplishments in human history. It's hard to imagine the untold millions of lives that alone saved. Proper sewage treatment is also essential—cholera was getting to be such a nuisance.

It's a multiplicity of factors that has extended human life considerably. Around 4,000 years ago, the average lifespan in most parts of the world was around 35. Today, if you look at a kid walking by, you can be pretty confident that kid will live to be at least 78 (at least in developed countries). And that kid's kids? Who knows? I imagine the lifespan will be well into the nineties in the near future.

Considering all of this, then, humans do not have short lifespans anymore. Relatively speaking, at least. Most animals live only a fraction as long as we do.

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FYI - Humans have longer lifespans than any other primate.

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Drinking water was first spoiled then we recently make efforts to improve it,epidemics are first fostered by neglecting hygeine and then we are happy about curing the disease.Many problems leading to a short life span were brought about with advent of civilization and we are now focussing on solving the problems and then crediting ourselves with increasing the longeivity of human life.There have been many historical attestations of prolonged life in the past.

As a biotechnologist i know that our body has the capability of existing indefinately as long as we have nutrition and some basic factors.Senescence and becoming old and dying out are not really a necessity for us Humans or our bodies,instead it has been programmed for us to die out.There is lot of cutting edge research that is going on to prolong our life cycles especially on Telomerase enzyme etc by countering suspected biological reasons for ageing beyond a point and senescence.From observing the potential of our bodies to live for ever as long as a few basic conditions are met the process of becoming old and dying out gets even more difficult to explain in terms of evolution etc.Also natural selection etc can't explain the late advent of sexual maturity,sexual reproduction or a shorter life span etc,we have animals that are known to live for hundreds of years.But in all cases it seems that death is programmed rather then a natural outcome,any biological cell has the potential for staying alive as long as there is nutrition and no direct major physical/chemical harm but the observation is that cell is proggramed to die out in case of us higher animals.Death is not really a natural process and neither is an absolute requirement when observed closely it seems to be programmed into our genetic codes and goes against every naturalistic principle of survival.

Overpopulation cannot cause senescence,it can increase the intensity of struggle for survival but cannot account for ageing and death.

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Gas round the villages might of been from the practice of the tudors who used steamed vinegar and other steam chemical to combat the sweating sickness, its most probable that they were using this for the plague before the outbreak was known to the populace. the sweating sickness was meant to be able to be spread through the air.

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The good news is that probably at 25 a person can expect with medical advances in progress to live twice as long as their parents. Maybe to 150 years or more, because as you age, even more advances will be made, further pushing out your lifespan.

The bad news is that telling people to be Open and Imaginative is all very good, but without evidence you're just spouting out Opinion. An arguement that is Unsupported.

I do believe the human race is quickly being changed by our environments. As a whole, we are loosing our eyesight and hair rapidly, and we are moving less on average. And we are using our brains in ways that our hunter/gatherer forefathers could not have imagined. Thus evolution will support those whos brain works better with a computer, as he/she will have a better income and a more secure life, and have more opportunities and better resources to raise children.

It is just like breeding dogs. A new breed can be developed actually very quickly, and they can sometimes appear nothing at all like their parent breeds. Humans are adapting to their enviroment... being breed for their enviroment... very quickly.

Although I agree with some of what you said, and of course evidence based arguments are what science is all about. However the quote about "no room for imagination in science" is about the funniest thing I've ever heard LMAO my husband is a mathematician, many of my good friends are physicists and chemical engineers engaged in research. There is ALWAYS room for imagination in science. Breakthroughs, leaps of thinking, that "Eureka" moment. Mulling things over, going to sleep and dreaming abot a problem and waking up with the answer and being creative- are all part of scientific process. Only the "grunts" who never publish anything but trivial papers and never really think for themselves in the academic world would believe the ridiculous statement "there is no room for imagination in science". HMMMM Einsten would roll over in his grave at that statement.. imagination is sooo important to science.. otherwise data is meaningless.. you gather data.. then according to other research available and models of thought available..have to decide what it means.. even in maths

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Interesting thoughts about what we are "breeding" humans towards. I always wryly thought we are breeding in people who are good as:

- sales people,

-manipulative people, people who are good at influencing others, and of course

-"techy" types- programmers and engineers,

-Retail sales people (usually peppy good looking bimbo types both men and women (god bless them) to sell us goods in shops,but largely-- pardon my waffle- we seem to breeding in

-"administrators" da da daaaaa (ominous background music) god save us all LMAO

If you look in the job ads (at least in Australia) a huge amount of them are administrative

- Stereotypically they are

-small nosed beedy eyed administrators (glasses optional) who are

-incredibly anal, good organisers, meticulous, efficient and often (but not always)

-are lean with very poor musculature-

-sometimes "people-person's" but usually only in a "get ahead" kind of way..

-underneath this facade they are usually cold, calculating "lizard" types that lack compassion to the point of us breeding in sociopathically inclined types (people who beyond the social facade of warmth are so cold, compassionless, hard and calculating that eventually you are breeding in serial killer type personality extremes)

.. although we also seem to be paying big muscular "tradie" type of men ridiculously high pay, so maybe we are getting a reasonable spectrum..

BUT we seem to be moving towards a more effeminate society.. we celebrate feminine men, and ultra feminine women.. and many of the "man-y man.. traditional" men's roles (blue collar, construction etc. when blokes were blokes) seem to be dwindling (I could be wrong what do people think?).

Incidentally I think the American movie style propaganda probably influences the direction in which humans are breeding into. The American movies (not all, but many of them, and most of the blockbuster types) are definitely still pushing the "blue eyed" agenda, very political and very ethnicity orientating..(in their own direction.. favouring ethnic groups with blue eyes etc. who is funding this stuff, makes you wonder) also very sexist, very prejudiced against fat people, very prejudiced against many different countries internationally..and they keep pushing their own trade (ie. weed/pot)..to the point that I am like "OK American movie makers, we get that you must own interests that make money from pot sales, and that you have no other way of advertising our product.. but seriously stop pushing dangerous drug use that can cause permanent damage on our impressionable youths.. remind me never to watch mainstream American movies designed for the masses ever again" (and yet I go back for more- totally sucked in)

I worry that we are breeding up very technically brilliant people in terms of intelligence, but that we are breeding OUT compassionate people.. and this may lead to us having more world wars, more problems generally, more pollution, just everything wrong with the world that gets pushed to one side by the dominating technocrats who lack a deep and forward looking all encompassing sense of compassion.

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Interesting thoughts about what we are "breeding" humans towards. I always wryly thought we are breeding in people who are good as:

- sales people,

-manipulative people, people who are good at influencing others, and of course

-"techy" types- programmers and engineers,

-Retail sales people (usually peppy good looking bimbo types both men and women (god bless them) to sell us goods in shops,but largely-- pardon my waffle- we seem to breeding in

-"administrators" da da daaaaa (ominous background music) god save us all LMAO

If you look in the job ads (at least in Australia) a huge amount of them are administrative

- Stereotypically they are

-small nosed beedy eyed administrators (glasses optional) who are

-incredibly anal, good organisers, meticulous, efficient and often (but not always)

-are lean with very poor musculature-

-sometimes "people-person's" but usually only in a "get ahead" kind of way..

-underneath this facade they are usually cold, calculating "lizard" types that lack compassion to the point of us breeding in sociopathically inclined types (people who beyond the social facade of warmth are so cold, compassionless, hard and calculating that eventually you are breeding in serial killer type personality extremes)

.. although we also seem to be paying big muscular "tradie" type of men ridiculously high pay, so maybe we are getting a reasonable spectrum..

BUT we seem to be moving towards a more effeminate society.. we celebrate feminine men, and ultra feminine women.. and many of the "man-y man.. traditional" men's roles (blue collar, construction etc. when blokes were blokes) seem to be dwindling (I could be wrong what do people think?).

Incidentally I think the American movie style propaganda probably influences the direction in which humans are breeding into. The American movies (not all, but many of them, and most of the blockbuster types) are definitely still pushing the "blue eyed" agenda, very political and very ethnicity orientating..(in their own direction.. favouring ethnic groups with blue eyes etc. who is funding this stuff, makes you wonder) also very sexist, very prejudiced against fat people, very prejudiced against many different countries internationally..and they keep pushing their own trade (ie. weed/pot)..to the point that I am like "OK American movie makers, we get that you must own interests that make money from pot sales, and that you have no other way of advertising our product.. but seriously stop pushing dangerous drug use that can cause permanent damage on our impressionable youths.. remind me never to watch mainstream American movies designed for the masses ever again" (and yet I go back for more- totally sucked in)

I worry that we are breeding up very technically brilliant people in terms of intelligence, but that we are breeding OUT compassionate people.. and this may lead to us having more world wars, more problems generally, more pollution, just everything wrong with the world that gets pushed to one side by the dominating technocrats who lack a deep and forward looking all encompassing sense of compassion.

By the way.. I apologise in advance for my awful stereotyping (from my previous comments) and that at work I perform semi-administrative duties myself.. and do not strictly fit into all stereotype points (I am a creative type, into music, art, writing fiction, reading widely..and happen to have ridiculously good musculature to my bitter disappointment XD and no glasses yet, but give me another 10 years in front of a computer screen :D and we'll see (aww) also there are plenty of people in administrative types who are none of the above stereotypes.. and even if they were, nothing wrong with that.. in fact those stereotype administrators are probably the ones about to get the promotion and run the place..

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Drinking water was first spoiled then we recently make efforts to improve it,epidemics are first fostered by neglecting hygeine and then we are happy about curing the disease.Many problems leading to a short life span were brought about with advent of civilization and we are now focussing on solving the problems and then crediting ourselves with increasing the longeivity of human life.There have been many historical attestations of prolonged life in the past.

As a biotechnologist i know that our body has the capability of existing indefinately as long as we have nutrition and some basic factors.Senescence and becoming old and dying out are not really a necessity for us Humans or our bodies,instead it has been programmed for us to die out.There is lot of cutting edge research that is going on to prolong our life cycles especially on Telomerase enzyme etc by countering suspected biological reasons for ageing beyond a point and senescence.From observing the potential of our bodies to live for ever as long as a few basic conditions are met the process of becoming old and dying out gets even more difficult to explain in terms of evolution etc.Also natural selection etc can't explain the late advent of sexual maturity,sexual reproduction or a shorter life span etc,we have animals that are known to live for hundreds of years.But in all cases it seems that death is programmed rather then a natural outcome,any biological cell has the potential for staying alive as long as there is nutrition and no direct major physical/chemical harm but the observation is that cell is proggramed to die out in case of us higher animals.Death is not really a natural process and neither is an absolute requirement when observed closely it seems to be programmed into our genetic codes and goes against every naturalistic principle of survival.

Overpopulation cannot cause senescence,it can increase the intensity of struggle for survival but cannot account for ageing and death.

It is so bizarre- has any-one ever heard of programmed obsoletion? It is a phenomena where a company making a product (for example a printer or other electronic appliance or piece of technology) actually PROGRAMS in for the product to stop working after a certain amount of uses or a timer- so that people are forced to buy a new product to replace it. That's capitalism for you. BUT back to the point of where I am going with this- how amazing and strange that we as humans have this same phenomena in biological terms- we are programmed to die. You start feeling it- the aging process starts around say 24 years old- but we don't notice it till we are about 25, 26, 27, 28 etc. etc. first small things and then more and more things. it's bizarre- aging is bizarre- is anyone else with me on this? How much better would it be if we could have perfect health with no aging till the day we die after a long, long, happy life. Does anyone else (appart from being generally happy and grateful for the blessings they DO have in life and let's all pause to feel gratitude............) feel like that once they reach full adulthood that aging should be stop and that at that point we have a long period of near perfect equilibrium at adulthood.

Can someone please fix my telomeres and improve them ;D the points so far that really caught my interest in terms of an awesome fiction (maybe someone can put it in a Dr Who episode) is the idea that we have short lifespans because it is inconvenient to have slaves with a longer lifespan- they remember too much etc. has anyone ever seen the movie "They live" where the human population is a short lived slave breed created to serve EITHER a) long lived humans or virtually immortals B) an alien race in both cases that they have blended seamlessly into the human population- until one day this guy gets special glasses and he can see through their normal human facade and see that their faces underneath are "preserved" muscle, soft rottable exterior flesh removed, and important functional tendons preserved in some weird biotech way.. and then he sees that they rule the world secretly and also have space tech. and other technologies that they would NEVER disclose to everyone else.. Man I love sci-fi movies.. this one sounds like something I would write myself for kicks. good fun..

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Although I agree with some of what you said, and of course evidence based arguments are what science is all about. However the quote about "no room for imagination in science" is about the funniest thing I've ever heard LMAO my husband is a mathematician, many of my good friends are physicists and chemical engineers engaged in research. There is ALWAYS room for imagination in science. Breakthroughs, leaps of thinking, that "Eureka" moment. Mulling things over, going to sleep and dreaming abot a problem and waking up with the answer and being creative- are all part of scientific process. Only the "grunts" who never publish anything but trivial papers and never really think for themselves in the academic world would believe the ridiculous statement "there is no room for imagination in science". HMMMM Einsten would roll over in his grave at that statement.. imagination is sooo important to science.. otherwise data is meaningless.. you gather data.. then according to other research available and models of thought available..have to decide what it means.. even in maths

Inspiration and imagination have lead to major scientific breakthroughs and still many people try to seperate scientific thought from our own consciousness and spirituality.Science is a human system and is a systematic representation of our perception of the world,it is not an alien entity that we are trying to learn and understand.Here is a good link talking about the same issue:http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/27/when-einstein-met-tagore/
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It is so bizarre- has any-one ever heard of programmed obsoletion? It is a phenomena where a company making a product (for example a printer or other electronic appliance or piece of technology) actually PROGRAMS in for the product to stop working after a certain amount of uses or a timer- so that people are forced to buy a new product to replace it. That's capitalism for you. BUT back to the point of where I am going with this- how amazing and strange that we as humans have this same phenomena in biological terms- we are programmed to die. You start feeling it- the aging process starts around say 24 years old- but we don't notice it till we are about 25, 26, 27, 28 etc. etc. first small things and then more and more things. it's bizarre- aging is bizarre- is anyone else with me on this? How much better would it be if we could have perfect health with no aging till the day we die after a long, long, happy life. Does anyone else (appart from being generally happy and grateful for the blessings they DO have in life and let's all pause to feel gratitude............) feel like that once they reach full adulthood that aging should be stop and that at that point we have a long period of near perfect equilibrium at adulthood.

Can someone please fix my telomeres and improve them ;D the points so far that really caught my interest in terms of an awesome fiction (maybe someone can put it in a Dr Who episode) is the idea that we have short lifespans because it is inconvenient to have slaves with a longer lifespan- they remember too much etc. has anyone ever seen the movie "They live" where the human population is a short lived slave breed created to serve EITHER a) long lived humans or virtually immortals B) an alien race in both cases that they have blended seamlessly into the human population- until one day this guy gets special glasses and he can see through their normal human facade and see that their faces underneath are "preserved" muscle, soft rottable exterior flesh removed, and important functional tendons preserved in some weird biotech way.. and then he sees that they rule the world secretly and also have space tech. and other technologies that they would NEVER disclose to everyone else.. Man I love sci-fi movies.. this one sounds like something I would write myself for kicks. good fun..

The only darwinistic principle that can support Death is a psychological one and not a physical one.The impending timer of death may cause the animal/human to reproduce faster and more aggresively and hence the destructive mutation that led to shortness of life could have carried on and it is entirely plausible that people might have lived to 10 times more then our existing generation time before the so called mutation.

I would doubt Enki or Enlil trying to decrease our life span genetically,they may have stopped providing life elongating drugs etc so that we naturally die out faster or have shorter life span.

In Hindu myhtology it is the transition from better Yugas to worse ones (the present being the worst called Kali Yuga) that decreases the amount of time we live.(One yuga cycle(4 different yugas was supposed to be 432000/00 years,Since you are a Sitchin fan the number might ring a bell).

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