An Old and Optimistic Take on Old Age

I’ve been reading and thinking a lot lately about the process of aging. Many scientists who study it argue — quite convincingly — that it’s the most important scientific topic of our time. In his 1997 bestseller Time of Our Lives, biological gerontologist Tom Kirkwood writes that the science of human aging is “one of the last great mysteries of the living world.”Over the past century, Kirkwood notes, developed countries have used preventative and offensive tactics to slash infant mortality, smoking, and accident rates, and to conquer most infections. In the 1880s, the top causes of death were respiratory diseases (like tuberculosis and influenza) and digestive diseases (like cholera and typhoid), and life expectancy was around 46 years. Today, we’re living three decades longer and dying of illnesses — such as cancer, stroke, and dementia — that most of our ancestors didn’t grow old enough to get.Perhaps because people are living longer and longer, we tend to think about aging as a modern phenomenon. “Data from the Census Bureau tell us that there are currently around 39 million Americans age 65 and older, up from 25.5 million just 30 years ago,” notes the website of the National Institute on Aging. “This population explosion is unprecedented in history, and the resulting demographic shift is causing profound social and economic changes.”Though it may be getting a surge of scientific and cultural attention, aging isn’t a new problem. Far from it: Philosophers have been fretting over old age for thousands of years, asking essentially the same thorny, metaphysical questions that get asked today. This became obvious to me this weekend while reading The Nature of Man, a fascinating and surprisingly eloquent book published in 1903 by Russian biologist Élie Metchnikoff.Read more at...Only Human, December 2013.