Does science REALLY study trends, or does it cherry pick?

Question

I have written evidence from Mesopotamia that human beings had life spans of about 200 years or more from a source outside the Bible.

I have written evidence that some of the pharoahs in Egypt reigned in excess of 90 years. Ditto for Chinese rulers in the Bronze Age.

If human beings are evolving, why do we need extensive medical care in today's world to live 80 or 90 years (and why is our life expectency only 60 years in some countries with medical care equivelent to Bronze Age technology?

From Oxford University:
http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.2.1.2&charenc=j#

Read the first paragraph. This was written about 1800 BC.

Ahh! Thank you, Gorgeous!

(But wait a minute: there was no industrial waste in 17th century Salem, either, and their life expectancy was about 50!)

Doh!

acid_zebra: nonprophet:

I dub you "disciple of science"!

The source I quoted was not religious in nature! The writer was making an observation, but science doesn't need factual observation, does it?

Answer 1

Evidence that people had life spans of about 200 years or more? That'd be something. I'd like to see it. Care to produce it?

Or by "written evidence" did you mean that stuff in your link? That's not "evidence", it's just claims. If you think that's evidence that people really did live that long, then you must also believe that when I write "There are lime-green flying elephants", that's evidence that there are lime-green flying elephants.

No-one could be that stupid, I hope.

Answer 2

Which scientist has concluded that human lifespans must be static?
Science does not rule out the possibility that human lifespan could be evolving to be shorter. Lifespan is a trait relevant to species survival and subject to evolution.

However, the principle of parsimony (Occam's Razor) is basic to a scientific approach. Parsimony favors making the fewest assumptions where there is no experimental fact. Ancient writings are not experimental fact admissible by the scientific method. Today's lifespans are, and physical archaelogical evidence is. So if you wanted science to address the possibility of these long lifespans referred to (obliquely?) in the writings, it'd be preferable to have some experimental support for the idea - humans today with unusually long lives, or a gravestone with dates. As far as I know, there is none.

Money for science is hard to come by, and scientists generally won't spend it to pursue an idea that has no experimental basis and rejects the principle of parsimony. It'd be unscientific. That's why you see "cherry-picking." It doesn't mean science necessarily rejects the possibility that lifespans could have been longer in the past. It's just the way science is - some ideas are possible, just too farfetched to seriously address.

Answer 3

What work was translated as "year"? What calendar was in use by the group? Was this a contemporary account, or recording a legend? You clearly do not know the difference between mean and range if you asked this question. Centenarians can exist in an area where the life expectancy is 30 years. Infant mortality -- a lot of zeros -- brings down the mean dramatically. Since famine was a big killer, the nobility could easily outlive their subjects. I knew a 103 year old who worked until three weeks before he died. His first significant medical intervention occurred when he was 90.

Answer 4

We need extensive medical care because of what humans have put into our enviornment. I don't believe that there was asbestos in Mesopotamia.

Answer 5

You have provided not a shred of credible evidence to support your arguments- your total lack of intellectual honesty is a disgrace.

Answer 6

scientists are flalible and bring allot of baggage when they look at the evidense

its hard to seperate your assumptions from the data and it colors the data and the way you look at it

the pharoahs would have lived not long after the flood and human lifespans were lessening.
Abraham lived till 175 circa 2000BC and he would have looked up at his son as he died and been able to say 'when i was your age God promised me a son..."

Answer 7

Alright well let me know when all your hypotheses are published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Thanks, you're a trooper.

Answer 8

bwahaha do you REALLY want to use Sumerian god-literature as an underpinning for your christian or muslim or whatever monotheistic bipolar sky daddy you worship?

Answer 9

science doesn't cherry pick because real scientists are only interested in the truth, no matter what it is.

Answer 10

Science is the problem,they tampper with things that they should not.