We’ve previously had discussions on the SDMB about the people who are known (using modern verified data) to have lived the longest. For this purpose, I going to rely on the Wikipedia entry with a list of the oldest known people (with modern verified data) who have ever lived. That’s List of the verified oldest people - Wikipedia. Let’s look at everyone who ever lived to at least 115. There are 53 of them, only three of whom are men. The total number of people who have lived to at least a particular age (between 115 and 122) is as follows:
It’s been claimed that at the age of 105 or above, your chance of living to your next birthday is 50%. (I’m not going to argue that here, so just accept it for the moment please.) So if you take a random group of 53 115-year-olds and see how many of them live to (at least) each of the ages in the table above, this is the number who actually did live to that age in the real group of those who lived to that age versus the number we would expect to live to that age on average for a random group (using the 50% figure).
This strikes me as pretty close. And, remember, there are three 116-year-olds and one 118-year-old among the real group who may well live even longer. I think therefore that the claims (that the 121-year-old and the 119-year-old were lying about the ages since that’s too old for anyone to live) are wrong.
Can anyone use some mathematical techniques to show whether the real group sufficiently closely matches the random group in ages?
The issue with Jean Clement is not that 121 is impossible, but that she most likely conflated the dates of her mother with her own. She refused to be examined medically, and people who met her in later life thought she looked much younger than she said she was.
Most likely we will be have a genuine 120 year old within a decade or less.
The claim that Jeanne Calment’s age was significantly exaggerated is not supported by most of the people who’ve studied her life, as this Feb. 2020 article analyzes in detail.
The mathematical model that you’re using surely cannot correspond to biological reality. The probability of dying within the next year must increase with age, not stay constant. Otherwise it implies that someone who is 115 has the same probability of living another ten years as someone who is 105. So I’m afraid the curve-fitting that you’re using as evidence does not support the existence of a 122-year-old.
People have looked carefully at lists of everyone who lived to at least 105 and they found that after that point their chance of living one year more will be 50% for the rest of their life.
The claim that Jeanne Calment’s age was significantly exaggerated is not supported by most of the people who’ve studied her life, as this Feb. 2020 article analyzes in detail .
Yes and no. There is circumstantial evidence on both sides, but there are definitely some loose ends. The photographic evidence, for one thing; in old age she looks about two decades younger than claimed. Above all, why was she buried so quickly, and refused to be examined? An examination of her teeth would have answered the question for once and for all. It is a pity that more effort was not taken in 1997 to validate or disprove her, while the witnesses were still alive.
There remains the anomaly that no other person has yet reached 120. She did, and by a handsome margin.
Brayne_Ded, all you’re saying is that there isn’t clearly convincing evidence either that she was telling the truth or was lying about her age. That I can accept. The fact that no one else has lived to 120 doesn’t really make it that much less probable that she lived to 122. It’s now frequently claimed that someone who lives to be 118 will continue to have a probability of 50% of living one more year for the rest of their life. Since there have been three people who have lived to 118, that means that we can expect 1.5 to live to 119, 0.75 will live to 120, 0.375 to live to live to 121, and 0.1875 to live to 122. In other words, if we know that three people have lived to 118, then there is more than 10% probability that one will live to 122. That’s not a very small chance. Furthermore, living three years more than anyone else is not a “handsome margin.”
She apparently in an interview talked about seeing crazy man Van Gogh wandering around Arles when she was growing up. it would be nice to think that was true.
Looking at Wikipedia - the theory was advanced that Calment’s daughter took over her identity in 1934 but is not widely accepted. However, the site has a photo from 1945 and one when she was 20 in 1895. In 1945 she did not look only 47 (which she would have been if it were her daughter) she looks closer to 70. Also, one piece of trivia I’ve heard, the ridges and shapes in the ears are as distinctive as fingerprints. From what I can make out in the photos, the ears are pretty much the same, so unlikely they are different people.
Also, small towns tend to be very snooty and snoopy. It is doubtful she’d have gotten away with that without moving away. We live is a society where people tend to barely know their neighbours, come and go in cars and not interact. In small towns 80 years ago, that simply did not happen. Every nosey old biddy on the street knew everyone’s business and noticed everyone’s coming and going.
As for her looking much younger than her claimed age, well, that’s only to be expected, isn’t it? Someone who lives an extraordinarily long time is obviously going to be someone on whom the years have taken a lesser toll than normal.
For a less extreme example, my mother (who’s already beaten the average lifespan, and who comes from long-lived stock) often finds herself in conversation with folks who wish they were still her age… except that further discussion usually reveals that she’s 5-10 years older than them.
There are news stories lately that Lucile Randon, also known as Sœur André since she’s a nun, has just passed her 117th birthday. She’s the second oldest person currently living (and Kane Tanaka who is 118 is the oldest) and the tenth oldest who ever lived (in both cases, including only those people who can be verified with modern records. The interesting thing is that she just survived the Coronavirus.