Re: Slate: The Legend of the Scope Trial

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

Joe Ellis <synthfilker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:


In article <87d5n6tglc.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b@xxxxxxxx> wrote:


Joe Ellis <synthfilker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:


"Oldest Slave", maybe. "Very old", certainly. "137 years"... not a chance. Not since Methuselah.

Statistics say such people should exist. Given the population and the
distribution of ages-at-death, the question "how likely is it that
there's a person 130 years old" gets a *very* high probability.

No they don't. Actually, from the data I was able to find, it has a *zero* probability. An age of 130 is substantially outside the range of verified human ages. _NO_ recorded examples of anyone 137, ANYWHERE. No recorded Americans over 119, _ever_.


None of which is relevant to my argument. The age-at-death is
believed to have a certain distribution with a certain mean and
standard deviation. By that distribution and those parameters, one
can assign probabilities to the existence of a member of the
population with certain characteristics. The probability of a person
130 years old in the population (of some 6 billion) is very, very,
high. 

No _current_ examples of living supercentenarians over 115,
_anywhere_. In fact, no recorded examples at all of
supercentenarians over 127, anywhere, any time.  A ten year gap
between "oldest recorded" and "oldest claimed" seems _highly_
unlikely.  You might as well claim a 1000 year old man - there are
exactly as many verifiable (or even _possible_) examples.

100 years ago, what percentage of the population of the world had
their births formally recorded in records we would consider reliable
today if they were brought forward in support of such a claim? 1%?
.001%? Somewhere in that range, anyway.

People are certainly living longer on average now, in some places. With advances in medicine, who's to say that someone living now won't make it to 136, at least?

Kip W
and what about Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer? Hah??
.

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