# I think we can put the question of living to the age of 930 to rest

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-can-put-the-question-of-living-to-the-age-of-930-to-rest/714640>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 9, 2015, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-can-put-the-question-of-living-to-the-age-of-930-to-rest/714640 "2015-03-09T21:57:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ugh\_the\_caveman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/77aa72/32.png) [@Ugh\_the\_caveman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ugh_the_caveman)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2015, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-can-put-the-question-of-living-to-the-age-of-930-to-rest/714640/1 "2015-03-09T21:57:51Z")

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Human lifespan has pretty much been relatively constant. It’s not possible to live 930 years. And we have always had the same brain size since the dawn of humanity (or modern humans, for evolution fans). And with our brain size, it’s likely we would live longer than our body size should predict. So, it’s probably a myth that people died at 30-35 back then. The human lifespan has pretty much always been 72 years, give or take a few years. This paper gives 72.9 years:

[http://web.lib.ucdavis.edu/dept/instruc/research/videos/termpaper/termpapermodel-lifespan.pdf](http://web.lib.ucdavis.edu/dept/instruc/research/videos/termpaper/termpapermodel-lifespan.pdf)

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**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2015, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-can-put-the-question-of-living-to-the-age-of-930-to-rest/714640/2 "2015-03-09T22:00:38Z")

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I’m sorry. Was there a question in all of that?

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**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2015, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-can-put-the-question-of-living-to-the-age-of-930-to-rest/714640/3 "2015-03-09T22:15:55Z")

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I don’t think anyone on this board has ever made the claim you are valiantly trying to refute so this is going to be an easy one to in (you have the wrong forum too BTW).

However, as a side note, both you and the author of the paper that you cited don’t seem to understand the difference between lifespan and life expectancy. Human lifespan is about 120 years, not 72 like you stated. Life expectancy is currently about 72 years but it has fluctuated a lot over time and place due to factors like disease, malnutrition and wars among many other things. It is a very common mistake but you may want to read about the differences between the two terms before you write on this topic because they are very different fundamentally.

Here is a good explanation:

> **[Life Expectancy Versus Life Span](https://www.news-medical.net/health/Life-Expectancy-Versus-Life-Span.aspx)**
>
> The terms “life expectancy” and “lifespan” describe two distinctly different things, although people tend to use these terms interchangeably.

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**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2015, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-we-can-put-the-question-of-living-to-the-age-of-930-to-rest/714640/4 "2015-03-09T22:23:59Z")

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Since I don’t see a question here, and I’m not sure what this is in reference to, I’m going to close this. A new thread may be opened if the OP has a specific question.

Colibri  
General Questions Moderator