Aging and death inevitable, claim scientists, according to reports in ScienceDaily and University of South Denmark (SDU) News 16 June 2021 and Nature Communications 16 June 2021, doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-23894-3.
A large international team of scientists has analysed data on patterns of births and deaths from nine human populations and 30 primate (gorillas, chimps, baboons, etc.) populations in order to test a theory about aging called “the invariant rate of ageing hypothesis”. This states that every species has a relatively fixed rate of aging. In order to do this they looked at two sets of data – life expectancy and lifespan equality.
Life expectancy is the average age of death of individuals in a population. If a large proportion of the population die in infancy or youth the life expectancy for that population is low even if some people live to old age.
Lifespan equality is measure of “how concentrated deaths are around older ages”. As explained by SDU News “lifespan equality is very high when most individuals tend to die at around the same age such as observed in modern Japan or Sweden – which is around their 70s or 80s”. This was not always the case in these countries. In the early 1800s lifespan equality was low, i.e. many people died before reaching old age.
Fernando Colchero who led the study explained: “Life expectancy has increased dramatically and still does in many parts of the world. But this is not because we have slowed our rate of aging; the reason is that more and more infants, children and young people survive and this brings up the average life expectancy”.
The research team found that “as life expectancy increases, so does lifespan equality”. In other words, a bigger proportion of the population reaches old age but they then rapidly die off at much the same age.
Colchero commented: “Human death is inevitable. No matter how many vitamins we take, how healthy our environment is or how much we exercise, we will eventually age and die”. However, he remains hopeful, and commented: “Medical science has advanced at an unprecedented pace, so maybe science might succeed in achieving what evolution could not: to reduce the rate of ageing”.
Links: ScienceDaily, SDU
Editorial Comment: Colchero is correct – human death is inevitable, but the reason is not just biological, so it will never be solved by medical science. Aging is a biological process, but even if medical science could slow it down the inevitable result will still be death, not for physical reasons but spiritual, because death came into the world as the Creator’s judgement on Adam’s sin.
So, to solve the death problem we must deal with the root cause, and this has been done. Jesus Christ paid the penalty by dying on the cross and then rising from the dead. Therefore, to live forever don’t put your trust in medical science, put it in Jesus who freely offers new life to all who repent of their sin. You will still die in this world, but then again who wants to live forever in our current degenerate bodies in our current evil-filled world. The eternal life that Jesus offers is a completely new life in a new body in the new Heavens and Earth He will create after this world is destroyed. (See Romans 5:12-21, I Corinthians 15:35-56, Revelation 21 & 22.)
After gathering all these statistics these scientists have simply proven a statement made by Moses over 3,000 years ago is true: “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty” (Psalm 90:10).
However, Moses also wrote of the times when human beings lived longer. The first man Adam lived to be 930. Noah also lived to a great age, but after the Flood lifespans rapidly decreased, so that by the times of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lifespans were less than 200 years but still longer than these days. Moses was granted 120 years by the Creator and he certainly seems to have been an exception. Since his day lifespans have settled to the current length of around 70 – 80 in countries with good medical care.
For more information on human lifespans see the question: Why don’t we live for many centuries like the people in the early generations in the Bible? Answer here.
Creation Research News 14 July 2021
Were you helped by this item? If so, consider making a donation so we can keep sending out our newsletters and add more items to this archive. Donate here.