[sammyo]

One actual researcher mentioned good habits will get anyone into their 80's but everyone tested over 105 has most of 100 certain genes. Really old age may be genetic.

[derbOac]

I do aging genetics research and in fact that's the opposite of my impression so far. Not trying to be contrary, I'm sympathetic to that idea, but most of what I've seen suggests idiosyncratic environmental effects become more prominent as you age, even into late age. Those random fatal events, cumulative exposures, random nucleotide flips, and so forth, all add up more with time.

I suspect aside from lifestyle changes and drugs targeting those affected pathways, gene and "epigene" editing is the thing that will result in longer lifespans. But genetic and epigenetic editing targeting random accumulated mutations with age, not necessarily those at birth.

The phenomenon in the linked piece is important because it throws a monkey wrench into a lot of stuff. I'm skeptical of biological measures of aging because of the widespread idea that people can be biologically older or younger than chronological age. I think it's going to take some large population with good, verifiable, maintained records at birth, which will take some time to establish.

[theptip]

Any review papers or pop-sci writeups you like on potential approaches for in vivo epigene editing?

[busterarm]

No researcher will actually make this argument though because they'll immediately be called a eugenicist.

[throwup238]

Researchers don’t care about that. We’ve already got IVF with preimplantation genetic diagnosis. So far it’s mostly used for eliminating genetic disorders like fragile-X but there’s nothing stopping parents from trying to select for other attributes except having enough money to pay for it and finding the right doctor. Though realistically the most you can really do now is avoid genetic disorders and select the sex of the baby.

That ship has sailed.

[bell-cot]

From a quick web search - "nature vs. nurture" seems to be safe for discussion, on traits far more sensitive than "could you live to 85, or to 105?".

[malfist]

Clearly a researcher has made that argument or GP wouldn't be talking about it.

[jraph]

Why?

It's not making an argument, it's describing. And describing is not taking action.

[edit] about describing truth or evidences: we need that. Of course it all depends on how you present the truth, whether you are actually doing pseudoscience or not, whether you are manipulating concepts that are actually scientific or not, and whether you are conflating correlation with causation or not.