Discussion»Statements»Rosie's Corner» "Since 1900 the global average life expectancy has more than doubled." Can we expect that to keep happening futurely?
No because it does not say human life-span in ideal conditions over 100 years, but "global average life expectancy", and that is a different thing.
All its says is that in 1900 a vastly larger proportion of the world's population died in their 30s or 40s; mainly from poverty, war, natural disasters, disease and famine. Far fewer natural diseases could be cured then; and fatal or debilitating industrial diseases and accidents were far more common at the time. Nevertheless many people staggered on into their 70s and 80s, and more, even in 1900. They might have been existing more than living, but at least were still alive.
Mean life-span itself for healthy people in reasonably good conditions certainly has increased over the century, but by no means doubled. All organisms seem to have definite mean life-spans assuming conditions allow them to reach their natural end, and our species is no exception, notwithstanding ours is fairly widely defined, and we doing our best to prolong it medically.
So effectively, far more people are living their allotted three-score-and-ten and many above that; hence doubling the world-wide average of expectancy; not doubling human life-span full-stop.
' We have to be careful with reported statistics. The original source if some civil-service, academic or international body like the UN is usually (but not always) sound; but reporting even by a careful and independent news organisation often skews it because the journalists don't really understand it or have time to think about it.
Thank you for your thoughtful and comprehensive reply Durdle. We have no way of knowing what the future will bring vis a vis advances in medicine cures for diseases expanding our life expectancy. At least it seems so to me. 100 years ago would we could not have envisioned cell phones computers self-driving autos yet here we are surrounded by them. I think our limit is our imagination. I believe anything is possible. I also believe there is much in life that we will never be able to access because of our limitations as human beings. But those limits might be stretched. Perhaps one day there will be a breakthrough. It is said there is a UNIVERSAL MIND and if we can just tap into it we will understand how things were done thousands of years ago that we cannot replicate today. Wouldn't you like to understand everything? I would. I think I'll ask. Thank you for your reply! :)
Durdle 