At a recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a group of biologists discussed how, in the near future, people could expect to live 100 years. A longer, healthier life is good news to most, but predictably some speakers took a negative, almost pro-death, stance. Stanford University biologist Dr. Shripad Tuljapurkar presented a model examining the demographic and economic effects of increased longevity. He said that between 2010 and 2030, anti-aging therapies will increase the normal lifespan by 20 years — an estimate many scientists consider “moderate.”
I was the organizer of the symposium at which Dr. Tuljapurkar spoke, and he has been widely misquoted and misinterpreted. He did not suggest that we should not develop anti-aging technology - free market research will probably be beyond regulatory control in any case. He simply made projections based on a reasonable assumption of technological advance, and said that we must start planning now for these changes. Even without anti-aging technology, we need to reform social security funding; this would be exacerbated greatly under even a modest scenario. As regards a global underclass, it is true that much of the world has been left out of the wealth that a few nations enjoy, and that with a few exceptions the problem has actually gotten worse over the past 20 years according to World Bank development indices. Anti-aging therapy would not necessarily make it much worse than otherwise, but it might make it more difficult to change this situation, which may be hopeless in any case. The point Dr. Tuljapurkar was making, and which I would make emphatically, is that if we start planning now and developing sound policy, we may be able to develop and distribute anti-aging technology in such a way that it has less impact on global inequality. Even if that is not possible, it is good to think in advance about the consequences of new technology. This is not a black-and-white issue, but it is an issue which could have huge consequences for everyone in many ways, and it is best to start considering those consequences ahead of time. Alan Cohen University of Missouri-St. Louis
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Longer Lives Threatened by Global Divide Arguments
Posted by: Sonia Arrison February 24, 2006 05:00 AMAt a recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a group of biologists discussed how, in the near future, people could expect to live 100 years. A longer, healthier life is good news to most, but predictably some speakers took a negative, almost pro-death, stance. Stanford University biologist Dr. Shripad Tuljapurkar presented a model examining the demographic and economic effects of increased longevity. He said that between 2010 and 2030, anti-aging therapies will increase the normal lifespan by 20 years — an estimate many scientists consider “moderate.”
As regards a global underclass, it is true that much of the world has been left out of the wealth that a few nations enjoy, and that with a few exceptions the problem has actually gotten worse over the past 20 years according to World Bank development indices. Anti-aging therapy would not necessarily make it much worse than otherwise, but it might make it more difficult to change this situation, which may be hopeless in any case. The point Dr. Tuljapurkar was making, and which I would make emphatically, is that if we start planning now and developing sound policy, we may be able to develop and distribute anti-aging technology in such a way that it has less impact on global inequality. Even if that is not possible, it is good to think in advance about the consequences of new technology.
This is not a black-and-white issue, but it is an issue which could have huge consequences for everyone in many ways, and it is best to start considering those consequences ahead of time.
Alan Cohen
University of Missouri-St. Louis