It is very hard to investigate their claims without being in these countries, speaking the language and being able to look for the original records. It is good to see an organised validation group in South America that is now working well. It would be good to see next a similar group formed for the Asian countries that are not well covered. Perhaps it is already happening.

I think it's likely we'll see our first 117 year old man and another 120 year old woman by 2030. I also think that by 2050 a 120 year old woman will be as common as a 117 year old woman is now. 

I know we're not supposed to predict, but in my opinion I was very impressed that Mr. Goncalino Norberto was able to chop wood at 110, and Mr. Rafael Chinchilla could beat down his own Pinata at 110. Both are unverified, but if either is the actual age claimed, I think they are healthy enough to reach 117. Mr. Carlos Garzon seems extremely healthy at 112, but his age has been cast into doubt and he might only be 107.

As for the women, all the pre 1910 ones still look strong. Tatsumi looks frail but has never been seriously ill and has no underlying conditions. I think one will hit at least 118. But only time will tell, not predictions.

I'd also like to ask you what your thoughts are on Mr. Jose Flores Flores, Mrs. Batuli Lamichhane, Mrs. Guadalupe Garcia, and Mr. Seliman Bandang? I personally think that of all the claimants (not unverified cases) these 4 have the strongest possibility of being the age claimed, with Lamichhane's correct year of birth being 1903, not 1900. I personally have never seen any evidence against any of these cases, however I do agree that there is not enough evidence yet to say they are certain. Lamichhane being nearly 120 is a very unlikely age, and she could be a few years younger. And Bandang looks unusually young for an SC, but he may have taken exceptionally good care of his skin to slow aging. I've said on this forum before, I think they're worth looking into more, what's your opinion?

I investigated some projections with nzak.

Interesting that the living men's oldest list is currently dominated by South America. I would assume that the rule of thumb that men are three years behind women will remain true. The expected MRAD should reach 120 for women and 117 for men around 2030, but then chance comes into play. We can be optimistic that these milestones will be realised before 2050.

Covid and strained health services have taken their toll on the generation of future supercentenarians. At some point new medical research might emerge and it is hard to predict its effect. Also constant mortality rates cannot be assumed above 118. It is difficult to anticipate the consequences of climate change, AI automation, etc.

If we skip over these big unknowns, the UN projects centenarian numbers to keep doubling every decade until at least 2050 which could mean that the 1 year increase per decade continues until at least 2070, but it could also plateau sooner if mortality rates stay higher than 50% pa. I think that an MRAD above 125 will require some significant progress with anti-aging medical research. Living past 120 is much harder than many gerontologists think because Calment gave them false hope. 

It would be great to have you here on this forum to continue making posts, but I think we should all give the Calment theory a break for a while. I may have misunderstood, but if I understood correctly they are planning to compare Jeanne's DNA with that of Yvonne's. I think we should all wait until this has occurred, and then continue with the Calment theory, because this will either highly strengthen her case or likely debunk it. 

I understand now that the maximum age recorded at death has increased about 1 year per decade making anyone over 117 an outlier in the 90s. This totally makes even more sense to me now that 130 year old people sadly don't exist. I think the MRAD will continue increasing till we reach a ceiling. I also think it will speed up, but very slowly. To me, since the MRAD is now around 119, I think there could currently be maybe 1 or 2 living people who are 118+, strengthening my ideas of 118+ claims. But I need to look into it further.

@pgibbs if you don't mind me asking, when do you think we'll see our first 117 year old man? I personally think it ought to be soon, but I could be wrong. I think it ought to be sometime in this decade. And when do you think for women, age 120 will become the new 117? I think we'll have as many 120 year old women in the 2050s (hopefully 2040s), as we have 117 year old women today.

That's excellent. I am going to send you something in PM.

Edit: @930310 hope my PM reached you

@stoa-oid they are mathematicians and not gerontologists. Arguing that they are more correct because they have PhDs is like entrusting people with degrees in economics to determine your dietary needs.

No gerontology expertise has been required in our work except the original observations of Valery Novoselov who prompted Zak to begin his study. Novoselov is a gerontologist. Our research has consisted of searching for documents and reports, translating interviews etc. The Bayesian inference sections required some very basic mathematics knowledge but the details can be skipped over. I would say that the only real differences between the kind of work we have done and what you are doing to research supercentenarians is that we write up our work as scientific reports and publish in that form.

I don't think anyone here needs to take anything on authority because of a need for expertise they don't have. Our reasoning and evidence is easily checked.

I wasn't able to respond to this earlier, but in our publications we provide transcripts in French for all used quotes from Mme Calment's interviews, in addition to the English translations. We also provide details of the interview and the time where the quotes are taken from. These can be checked on the INSERM website. In short these assertions about our evidence and motives are pure gaslighting.

This is a discredited fringe theory and Calment's recognised authenticity is in no danger. I have no reason to get involved.

That being said I respect your right to believe whatever you want, with regards to convincing others, I wouldn't get your hopes up.

I think there might be some misunderstanding here about the role that Gilbert's testimony plays in the evidence.

When we geolocated the picture of Yvonne with a parasol on a terrace to the Belvedere sanatorium in Leysin in 1931. Calment's supporters thought it was evidence that she had indeed died. We already suspected that Yvonne had been ill and this was confirmed when a letter was found showing that Joseph had taken leave from the army due to her bad health in 1928. Mme Calment says she was treated at a sanatorium in the Savoie (not Leysin) when she fell ill shortly after giving birth in 1927. However, from 1929, 1930 and 1931 there are photos showing Yvonne at public events looking healthy in Arles. Another photo from this time shows Yvonne and Jeanne together. Yvonne looks well here too, but Jeanne looks thin (compared to another photo) and appears to offered a present and flowers. The validators confused who was who in this picture because they thought Yvonne would be the one who was ill. 

We have examined that photo carefully. Zak even reconstructed a model to see where the sun must have been to cast the shadows. We are now almost certain that this photo was taken on the same terrace of the Belvedere as the parasol picture and at the same time. This further supports the case that it was Jeanne who was ill there. Another item of evidence are the medical studies carried out on Mme Calment in late life. These show that she must have had some pulmonary disease despite always claiming that she was never ill.

Zak went to Leysin to try and find more evidence and was put in touch with the son of Dr Gilbert who was the director of the Belvedere in 1931. His testimony confirmed that it was indeed Jeanne who was treated there. If there was only this evidence it might be doubtful, but all the evidence I have described points to this conclusion. Gilbert is a respectable person and he is certain of his testimony. He has no reason to get involved in misinformation.

This still leaves open the question of whether it was Yvonne or Jeanne who died in 1934. If it was Yvonne then she had to have a relapse some four years after her recovery while Jeanne recovered. This is not impossible. You then need to look at other evidence such as the signature change and Mme Calment's inconsistent testimony to determine who it was that died. Gilbert's testimony confirming that Jeanne was ill just illuminates some of the criticism that we are making this part up as speculation. 

Your ideas about the statistics are interesting. You could be right, but in my opinion the list of supercentenarians is more complete than you think. I could be wrong but our analysis of the statistics shows that the expected MRAD (Maximum Recorded Age at Death) has increased at one year per decade since the 1990s and is now about 119 years. This makes Calment an outlier by about 5 years. Knauss was also an outlier by about two years but her validation is stronger and her longevity is much more plausible. For Knauss to exist it is as if someone throw one dice and got a six. For Calment it is like someone throw three dice and got three sixes. Zak has been accused of basing his claims on this probability alone but that is not true. If this was the only evidence it would not be enough, but probabilities combine and everything should be taken into account. By the way Jean-Marie Robine who validated Calment has made even stronger statements than us about how much of a statistical outlier she was. He said in the press recently that his studies indicate that mortality rates at high age (>107) are higher than previously thought. He will publish on this soon. It will be interesting to see how this modifies his assessment of Calment.  

I agree with you that it is statistically unlikely that anyone has lived to 130. I think it is about level odds that anyone has yet lived past 120 and been unrecorded or unverified. With increasing longevity the probability drops off with exponential decay from there. There remains a possibility that someone had a very lucky combination of genes. I am not an expert on biology but I understand that there are problems with this idea. one cause of aging is telomere shortening which eventually prevents cells from subdividing. This can be counteracted e.g. with telomerase, but that leads to uncontrolled division and so cancers. Any medical advance that increases longevity would need to overcome this problem and others. Artificial treatments may work but natural genetic options seem less likely, so extraordinarily long-lived claims are not plausible. I encourage you keep studying your ideas.