| PAGE ID: VIEWPOINT
HEAD: Living the good life, not a long life
SUBHEAD: Facing the prospect of engineered immortality
BYLINE: DAVID BRIGHT
ILLUSTRATION: GENEVIEVE SIMMS
Julie Winnefred Bertrand died last week. This fact wouldn’t, in the normal run of things, make the news I suspect, but at age 115 Bertrand was reported to be the world’s oldest woman. Moreover, she was a Canadian, born and bred in the province of Quebec. Prior to her demise, Elizabeth Bolden of Tennessee (born in 1890) had previously held the record, but her death in December had given Bertrand a full month to enjoy her accidental fame.
OK, so I’m being a bit flippant. I mean no disrespect to the memory of Ms. Bertrand or insult to her surviving friends and relations, but it’s not quite clear to me why living an unusually long time can or should be regarded as a personal achievement, meriting an entry in the Guinness Book of Records.
No, strike that, for I do absolutely understand why records of human longevity capture the public’s interest. We live in a culture that, ironically, is not only obsessed with staying young (or young-looking, anyway), but also with remaining alive for as long as possible. This is not new, of course, for both the pursuit of eternal youth and eternal life seems to be hard-wired into western culture, it seems, stretching from the myth of Narcissus to the fabled tale of Dorian Gray to the present embalming of such celebrities as Dick Clark and Pamela Anderson. And yet the purpose of this pursuit, beyond immediate self-gratification, is less clear.
The Bible tells us that "the days of our years are three-score years and ten," though adding that "by reason of strength" they may be increased to "fourscore years" (Psalms 90:10). In other words, we should expect to live between 70 and 80 years. Of course, the Bible is also populated with characters who well exceed this divine instruction, including Noah (600) and Methuselah (nearly 5000), but let’s assume these were extreme cases.
No, for most of human history, life expectancy has rarely challenged in any serious way the scriptures’ dictum. Cultural fantasies may have toyed with the idea of eternal youth across the centuries, but the human lifespan has rarely exceeded the limit reached by Bertrand. Indeed, the longest unambiguous lifespan was that of Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment (1875-1997), who lived a total of 122 years and 164 days. Yet in case we’re tempted to attribute such longevity to modern medical or the scientific benefits, it’s perhaps worth noting that the oldest person living 170 years ago in 1837 was 108 years old. Perhaps, just perhaps, some people live longer than others.
Rubbish, many modern scientists argue. The human lifespan is as malleable and flexible as anything else in nature. Ray Kurzweil, for example, author of Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever, argues that "we are not another animal, subject to nature’s whim." Instead, through a mixture of vitamin supplements (the 57-year-old Kurzweil takes 250 per day) and nanobot technology to keep the bones, muscles and brain cells healthy, we should be able to approach the Holy Grail of immortality, in theory.
Bolder still is University of Cambridge gerontologist Aubrey de Grey, who claims that aging is a "barbaric phenomenon that shouldn’t be tolerated in polite society." Within as short a period as the next 25 years, de Grey argues, it ought to be possible to extend life expectancy to thousands of years – in other words, practically forever. Rising to the challenge, in 2005 the magazine Technology Review offered a prize of $20,000 to anyone who could demonstrate that de Grey’s proposition was "so wrong that it was unworthy of learned debate." As of late last year, no one had yet claimed the money.
Do we now stand on the brink of human immortality? Can we expect to see not only our grandchildren but our great-grandchildren mature into adulthood and then old age, as our lives extend far off into the distant future? Can we begin to contemplate living forever? More importantly, perhaps, should we even welcome either prospect?
Put it this way: is there a reason why we – like every other species on Earth – age and then die? Since the 19th century, evolutionary scientists have grappled with such questions to show how and why death is as much a part of the natural cycle as life itself. Building on early notions of "group evolution," in the 1950s scientist Peter Medawar argued that the force of natural selection declines with age. Since all organisms eventually die of disease, accident, predation, etc., he posited, genes that are beneficial early in life (i.e. those that assist survival and propagation) are favoured by natural selection over genes that are beneficial later in life.
For example, in a species with an average longevity of 10 years, there is little evolutionary advantage in having beneficial genes at age 20, as only a tiny fraction of the population ever reaches that age. On the contrary, genes that are beneficial at age two will be preserved and perpetuated by means of natural selection. In short, nature favours the young, and we – in turn and as a species – promote traits and characteristics associated with the youthful.
Still, Kurzweil, de Grey and others argue that it is precisely by overcoming the biological imperatives of natural selection that humans have made so many advances over recent centuries. For de Grey, there is even a moral imperative to extend our longevity. "It’s not a question of how long life should be," he claims, "but whether the end of life should be hastened by action or inaction."
Yet surely it is not life itself but the quality of life that matters. Bertrand was, according to her nephew, "tough, feisty and self-sufficient." Yet for all that, the fact remains that she spent the final 35 years of her life in a Montreal nursing home, dependent on the care and kindness of others. If proposals to extend our lives deliver only the prospect of extending our passage into death, I think I’ll take the three-score years and ten.
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Do you have an opinion on this week's Viewpoint? Text messaging is a quick and easy way for you to share your opinion with us. We want to hear from you now.
Text VIEWPOINT (upper or lowercase) to 88123 to respond to the following question:
What should science aim to achieve?
A) Work to discover the secret of human immortality [LIFESPAN]
B) Forget about subverting the aging process and boost overall quality of life [LIFE QUALITY]
C) Allow humans to get old, wrinkly and die as we always have [NOTHING]
Wait for the question via text message and then reply with your response. Check next week's issue of Fast Forward for the results. Fast Forward Weekly will not charge you for your feedback. However, your service carrier may apply standard text messaging charges. Please be assured that Fast Forward Weekly will always keep any personal information confidential and will never use it for unsolicited communication. |
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