Why study exceptional longevity?

We thought studying the most exceptionally long-lived individuals would tell us something about what it takes to age successfully. It’s the same rationale used by Thomas Perls and investigators of the New England Centenarian Study and by other scientists who study long-lived humans in other parts of the world. The approach even garners support from the mathematical field. In a seminal book on the origins of creative genius, the mathematician Jacques Hadamard wrote: “In conformity with a rule which seems applicable to every science of observation, it is the exceptional phenomenon which is likely to explain the usual one.” Hadamard was trying to understand how the brain gets creative so he studied people with extreme creativity. When it comes to studying aging, we’re solidly in the Hadamard camp. That is why in 2005 we established the Exceptional Longevity Data Base, launching the first systematic study of the oldest-old pet dogs. But folks in the opposing camp might justifiably fire back: “Don’t study extreme longevity. Extreme longevity is much more about luck than it is about genes, or environment, or ovaries.” (See Response to Question: Could your results simply reflect the “strangeness” of the exceptionally long-lived dogs you studied?)

Hadamard J: The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field. New York, NY, Oxford Univ Press, 1945.