• Question: Can we live for ever?

    Asked by St Cyres Wales to Ceri, Marikka, Matt, Rob, Sally on 14 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Sally Cutler

      Sally Cutler answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      Afraid we are not designed to go on for ever. Where would you put everyone if we did last for ever?

    • Photo: Ceri Dare

      Ceri Dare answered on 15 Nov 2014:

      No. For the work I am doing at the moment, I have to read lots of medical notes, mostly of people who are very old or very unwell. People break down more and more in complicated ways until we just can’t patch them up enough any more.

      Dying is a part of life. It is very sad when people die, but we should expect it – even though I am only 30 and very healthy, I have already written a will and things like that. My best friend died when she was 19 and I was very sad. But my grandfather died when he was 86, and I was a bit sad but I knew he had had a good life.

      If people did live forever, what would happen to the population – more babies would be born, so we would have more and more and more people.

    • Photo: Robert Hampson

      Robert Hampson answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      No

      Some more radical scientists have suggested that the cycle of generations through death and birth is a multicellular organisms evolved response to cancer. I’m sceptical about that theory. However, as people increase in age, they become more and more likely to develop terminal cancer. At a very high age, it basically becomes a certainty.

      Life expectancy has increased dramatically in the modern and post-modern eras, medical science is often now trying to focus more on extending the time we can experience a high quality of life. This will improve the populations experience of life as well as hopefully reducing the burdens on health services as populations age.

    • Photo: Marikka Beecroft

      Marikka Beecroft answered on 19 Nov 2014:

      No at the moment we don’t even know why we get old!

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