Community hub
Recent from talks
Contribute something to knowledge base
Content stats: 0 posts, 0 articles, 0 media, 0 notes
Members stats: 0 subscribers, 0 contributors, 0 moderators, 0 supporters
Subscribers
Supporters
Contributors
Moderators
Hub AI
Longevity claims AI simulator
(@Longevity claims_simulator)
Hub AI
Longevity claims AI simulator
(@Longevity claims_simulator)
Longevity claims
Longevity claims are unsubstantiated cases of asserted human longevity. Those asserting lifespans of 110 years or more are referred to as supercentenarians. Many have either no official verification or are backed only by partial evidence. Cases where longevity has been fully verified, according to modern standards of longevity research, are reflected in an established list of supercentenarians based on the work of organizations such as the Gerontology Research Group (GRG) or Guinness World Records. This article lists living claims greater than that of the oldest living person whose age has been independently verified, British woman Ethel Caterham, aged 116 years, 208 days, and deceased claims greater than that of the oldest person ever whose age has been verified, French woman Jeanne Calment, who died aged 122 years and 164 days. The upper limit for both lists is 130 years.
Prior to the 19th century, there was insufficient evidence either to demonstrate or to refute centenarian longevity. Even today, no fixed theoretical limit to human longevity is apparent. Studies in the biodemography of human longevity indicate a late-life mortality deceleration law: that death rates level off at advanced ages to a late-life mortality plateau. This implies that there is no fixed upper limit to human longevity, or fixed maximum human lifespan. Researchers in Denmark have found a way to determine when a deceased person was born using radiocarbon dating done on the lens of the eye.
Guinness World Records from its inception in 1955 began maintaining a list of the verified oldest people. It developed into a list of all supercentenarians whose lifespan had been verified by at least three documents, in a standardized process, according to the norms of modern longevity research.[citation needed] Many unverified cases ("claims" or "traditions") have been controverted by reliable sources. Taking reliable demographic data into account, these unverified cases vary widely in their plausibility.
In numerous editions from the 1960s through the 1980s, Guinness stated that
No single subject is more obscured by vanity, deceit, falsehood, and deliberate fraud than the extremes of human longevity.
This caveat notwithstanding, Guinness at the same time listed a Canadian named Pierre Joubert as the oldest person to have ever lived, with supposedly "irrefutable" documentary proof showing he had been born in 1701 and died in 1814 – it was later discovered that a father born in 1701 and his son born in 1732 had been conflated, and Joubert has been removed from lists of supercentenarians.
In another case, Lucy Hannah, previously regarded as having reached age 117, had her verification removed in 2020 following the discovery of additional documents.
Despite demographic evidence of the known extremes of modern longevity, stories in otherwise reliable sources still surface regularly, stating that these extremes have been exceeded. Responsible, modern, scientific validation of human longevity requires investigation of records following an individual from birth to the present (or to death); purported longevity claims far outside the demonstrated records regularly fail such scrutiny.
Longevity claims
Longevity claims are unsubstantiated cases of asserted human longevity. Those asserting lifespans of 110 years or more are referred to as supercentenarians. Many have either no official verification or are backed only by partial evidence. Cases where longevity has been fully verified, according to modern standards of longevity research, are reflected in an established list of supercentenarians based on the work of organizations such as the Gerontology Research Group (GRG) or Guinness World Records. This article lists living claims greater than that of the oldest living person whose age has been independently verified, British woman Ethel Caterham, aged 116 years, 208 days, and deceased claims greater than that of the oldest person ever whose age has been verified, French woman Jeanne Calment, who died aged 122 years and 164 days. The upper limit for both lists is 130 years.
Prior to the 19th century, there was insufficient evidence either to demonstrate or to refute centenarian longevity. Even today, no fixed theoretical limit to human longevity is apparent. Studies in the biodemography of human longevity indicate a late-life mortality deceleration law: that death rates level off at advanced ages to a late-life mortality plateau. This implies that there is no fixed upper limit to human longevity, or fixed maximum human lifespan. Researchers in Denmark have found a way to determine when a deceased person was born using radiocarbon dating done on the lens of the eye.
Guinness World Records from its inception in 1955 began maintaining a list of the verified oldest people. It developed into a list of all supercentenarians whose lifespan had been verified by at least three documents, in a standardized process, according to the norms of modern longevity research.[citation needed] Many unverified cases ("claims" or "traditions") have been controverted by reliable sources. Taking reliable demographic data into account, these unverified cases vary widely in their plausibility.
In numerous editions from the 1960s through the 1980s, Guinness stated that
No single subject is more obscured by vanity, deceit, falsehood, and deliberate fraud than the extremes of human longevity.
This caveat notwithstanding, Guinness at the same time listed a Canadian named Pierre Joubert as the oldest person to have ever lived, with supposedly "irrefutable" documentary proof showing he had been born in 1701 and died in 1814 – it was later discovered that a father born in 1701 and his son born in 1732 had been conflated, and Joubert has been removed from lists of supercentenarians.
In another case, Lucy Hannah, previously regarded as having reached age 117, had her verification removed in 2020 following the discovery of additional documents.
Despite demographic evidence of the known extremes of modern longevity, stories in otherwise reliable sources still surface regularly, stating that these extremes have been exceeded. Responsible, modern, scientific validation of human longevity requires investigation of records following an individual from birth to the present (or to death); purported longevity claims far outside the demonstrated records regularly fail such scrutiny.