2008 Woodie Awards
Eternal Life For Everyone: No Church Membership Required!
Dr. Duncan professes that humans can defy natural selection and live forever.
Karina Mc Cabe
Issue date: 11/5/04 Section: Features
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Attention, students! I have just received groundbreaking news that we will now be able to live forever!
Please! Don't stop reading because you think that I am just using a catchy introduction to fool you into reading my article (okay, so I do that sometimes, but not this time). This is a statement made by a respected individual, Rollins College President Dr. Lewis M. Duncan. He believes that the generation born in the 1980s will be the first generation to experience eternal life on earth-if we so choose to do so.
By eternal life, I am not referring to a "heaven" or a spiritual afterlife in any sense; instead, there will be a perpetuation of the self in some semblance of a biological form, forever (or as long as one chooses). For non-science minded people (myself included), this is a tough concept to grasp. It seems implausible (okay, ridiculous) to suggest that our feeble bodies can withstand time, when our grandparents barely made it to eighty years old if they were lucky. How then can a person announce that we can defy our natural destiny and live eternally? In his article, Destiny by Design, Dr. Duncan reveals that this is possible through the developments of science and technology, both of which will challenge some of societies most closely held beliefs.
SANDSPUR: In your article in 2000, Destiny by Design, you stated that you believe that the generation born in the 1980s will live forever. Do you still believe that this is the case? If yes, then why?
DR. DUNCAN: "Yes, more than ever that's probably likely, because every day we see strides being made towards genetic and stem cell research."
"Perhaps from my mathematical background... I've always been intrigued by the exponential growth and Moore's law...I was interested in finding somewhere that exponential growth could be applied...one area was human life expectancy...
Two Hundred years ago the average life expectancy increased by 1-2 days a year, 100 years ago it increased by 1 week a year." This means that "A little more than a one hundred years ago, more than half the people my age would be dead." It [human life expectancy] has an exponential shape to it...[The question now is] when will the life expectancy be increasing a year for every year? I argue that this is possible in ten to twenty years."
Please! Don't stop reading because you think that I am just using a catchy introduction to fool you into reading my article (okay, so I do that sometimes, but not this time). This is a statement made by a respected individual, Rollins College President Dr. Lewis M. Duncan. He believes that the generation born in the 1980s will be the first generation to experience eternal life on earth-if we so choose to do so.
By eternal life, I am not referring to a "heaven" or a spiritual afterlife in any sense; instead, there will be a perpetuation of the self in some semblance of a biological form, forever (or as long as one chooses). For non-science minded people (myself included), this is a tough concept to grasp. It seems implausible (okay, ridiculous) to suggest that our feeble bodies can withstand time, when our grandparents barely made it to eighty years old if they were lucky. How then can a person announce that we can defy our natural destiny and live eternally? In his article, Destiny by Design, Dr. Duncan reveals that this is possible through the developments of science and technology, both of which will challenge some of societies most closely held beliefs.
SANDSPUR: In your article in 2000, Destiny by Design, you stated that you believe that the generation born in the 1980s will live forever. Do you still believe that this is the case? If yes, then why?
DR. DUNCAN: "Yes, more than ever that's probably likely, because every day we see strides being made towards genetic and stem cell research."
"Perhaps from my mathematical background... I've always been intrigued by the exponential growth and Moore's law...I was interested in finding somewhere that exponential growth could be applied...one area was human life expectancy...
Two Hundred years ago the average life expectancy increased by 1-2 days a year, 100 years ago it increased by 1 week a year." This means that "A little more than a one hundred years ago, more than half the people my age would be dead." It [human life expectancy] has an exponential shape to it...[The question now is] when will the life expectancy be increasing a year for every year? I argue that this is possible in ten to twenty years."