“The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution…. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to
regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.”
-Albert Einstein
WELCOME TO
THE NEW AGING PARADIGM
In his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn used the term “paradigm” to describe the set of preconceptions that serves as the conceptual framework for a field of science. It’s what everyone knows to be true about a subject without even thinking about it. The paradigm determines how scientists view the world and how they interpret observations. As a result, some phenomena are highlighted, while others are ignored. Most people, including scientists, academicians, and visitors to this website, are not even aware of the perceptual limitations imposed by paradigms generally, and the current aging paradigm in particular.
From the dawn of human civilization, the aging paradigm has been a central conceptual framework for the life sciences. Among the things that “everyone knows” to be true about aging are that young people are healthy and strong; older people suffer from progressive deterioration of strength, vitality and health. The infirmities of aging are inevitable and irreversible. The biological changes that we experience with advancing chronological age are part of an aging process that inevitably results in death. All species are subject to comparable aging processes. Since all members of all species suffer from aging, it must be a genetically inherited trait.
Here’s the glitch. Biological aging cannot be a genetically inherited trait. The fundamental principal of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is that traits that decrease the likelihood of survival and reproduction are rejected. Under the aging paradigm, all humans (and all other species) are presumed to share the most deleterious trait imaginable — progressively decreasing functionality in all physiological systems. Principles of natural selection tell us that that is impossible.
It’s not news that our universal beliefs regarding aging are inconsistent with the principles of natural selection. Darwin knew it. Every aging theorist since Darwin has known it. But rather than acknowledge that our understanding of aging might be flawed, Darwin and all of the theorists who have addressed the issue have tried to concoct rationales and contortions of Darwin’s theory that would make the theory fit our preconceptions. That effort has proven to be futile. If our preconceptions regarding aging are simply incompatible with the theory of evolution, as they are, then there must be something wrong with our preconceptions.
There is second compelling reason why we should question the current aging paradigm. Academicians have been unable to develop a theory that explains how or why “biological aging” occurs. Think about that for a moment. Aging is an aspect of biology. Biology is one of the natural sciences. All phenomena in nature have causes. But aging, perhaps the most fundamental phenomenon in biology, “just happens” in some mystical fashion. If it proves impossible to explain a natural phenomenon, one must question whether the observation of that phenomenon itself is accurate. You can’t come up with a theory that explains why the earth is the stationary center of the universe, because it’s not. If scientists haven’t been able to come up with a theory that explains how or why aging occurs, then we must question whether aging is what we think it is.
A third reason we should question the preconceptions that make up the current aging paradigm is that, when one actually does examine them, it turns out that the preconceptions themselves are inconsistent with what we observe in the real world. Not all young people are healthy and strong; not all old people are sick and weak. A number of the infirmities that are identified with the aging process are reversible – lifestyle modifications can markedly improve the functioning of a number of physiological systems. Despite decades of effort, no one has been able to come up with any compelling evidence that there is a pro-active aging process per se; if there is no such process, then there is no logical reason to assume that biological aging is the result of some purposeful means of limiting human lifespan. Other species do not experience the same biological aging process as humans. In fact, in their evolutionary environment (i.e., one that is populated with robust predator populations and organisms must compete for food), no species other than humans ever shows any signs of biological aging.
But if aging isn’t what we think it is, then what is it? After over a decade of research and analysis, the Institute is confident that it has the answers to that question. Those answers involve a paradigm shift – a fundamental re-examining of the nature of aging itself – that has been inevitable since Darwin proposed his Theory of Evolution.
Why should you care?
If a paradigm is flawed, the science in that field stagnates. Astronomy cannot progress if it based on the misconception that the earth is the stationary center of the universe. According to Thomas Kuhn, significant advances in science – scientific revolutions – occur following paradigm shifts, which involve a change in our fundamental perception of reality. Following a paradigm shift, scientists re-examine prior observations and design new experiments from within an improved conceptual framework. A field of science that has stagnated is revitalized.
Moreover, explaining why the typical human suffers from progressive declines in functionality with advancing chronological age is not just some sterile academic exercise; there are enormous real world consequences. The scientific/medical establishment has had almost no success in addressing age-associated degenerative diseases, such as dementia, cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis. Advances in medical technology can keep terminally ill patients alive for a longer period of time, but the identifying characteristic of these chronic degenerative diseases is that they cannot be prevented or cured.
A growing consensus of scientists now agree that these diseases result from the progressive physiological deterioration of the organs and systems that are responsible for the affected biological processes (e.g., cardiovascular disease is typically caused by decades of accumulated damage to the cardiovascular system). In other words, the root cause of all of these diseases is biological aging. But that gets us nowhere because scientists can’t explain why biological aging occurs. Worse, because the aging paradigm is based on the preconception that biological aging is an inevitable, natural, genetically inherited trait, the paradigm itself makes the problem insoluble, short of a radical genetic makeover.
But Darwin himself told us that biological aging cannot be an inherited trait, which means that there must be a solution to the problem of age-associated degenerative diseases. This website provides the roadmap that will ultimately lead to that solution.
The content on this website consists of 14 different essays, organized into four different sections. Each section can be accessed through the links set forth below. The first section discusses the current aging paradigm. The second section argues the case for a paradigm shift. The third section sets forth the proposed New Paradigm. And the fourth section discusses some of the implications of accepting the New Paradigm.
The website also has an Overview, which briefly summarizes each section and each of the essays comprising each of the sections. The Overview also explains how all of the concepts discussed in the individual essays fit together. If the reader is new to this website, starting with the Overview is highly recommended.
