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Originally Posted by Marcellus
Thats interesting info.
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Yeah, it's one of the bigger misconceptions that people have had. It's discussed in this Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_e...imum_life_span
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Life expectancy differs from maximum life span. Life expectancy is an average for all people in the population — including those who die shortly after birth, those who die in early adulthood (e.g. childbirth, war), and those who live unimpeded until old age. Maximum lifespan is an individual-specific concept — maximum lifespan is therefore an upper bound rather than an average. Science author Christopher Wanjek said "has the human race increased its life span? Not at all. This is one of the biggest misconceptions about old age." The maximum life span, or oldest age a human can live, may be constant. Further, there are many examples of people living significantly longer than the average life expectancy of their time period, such as Socrates, Saint Anthony, Michelangelo, and Benjamin Franklin.
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Again, that's not to say that people aren't living longer - they definitely are. It's just that we have this perception that everyone walking around back in the age of the Romans was like 25 years old (since that's the average), but the reality is that most healthy adults lived until their 50s, and many lived well into their 70s or longer.