Talk:List of unvalidated deceased supercentenarians/@comment-31321778-20170216200239/@comment-258494-20170216233217

Greetings Aubrey, welcome to the Gerontology Wiki! While our "speciality" or focus is currently on "supercentenarians", the Gerontology Wiki is intended to be an "encyclopedia" on gerontology. If there are areas here that you feel that you wish to contribute your expertise to, please do so.

Regarding your questions:

1. There is currently no "Gerontology Wiki" central data server that checks for data consistency. Checks for data consistency are done by a volunteer "army", who are asked to edit in a consistent manner. It should be viewed as amazing that there has been as much consistency as there already is.

2. When it comes to "unverified" age claims, for the past 40 years or so, there has been a basic presumption among scientists that, for ages 110+, the default value for claims should be to distrust it if there isn't sufficient proof/evidence of age. This has been discussed, for example, in the 1970s regarding claims such as whether the age claims in Vilcabamba were real or mythical.

In the past, a sharp division at age 110+ seemed to work: in the early 1980's, Japan had only 1-2 people 110+ (and if we discount the Izumi case, at times there may have been zero). The government of France was so skeptical of claims to 110+ that they automatically threw them out...until 1987, when media attention regarding the Calment case forced them to change their policy.

In the past 20 years, we have seen the number of supercentenarians living in Japan at any one time skyrocket, from about 4-5 to about 70-80 or more.

In other words, what was once just an exceedingly rare phenomenon is becoming less so.

As such, we must adjust the way the scientific and fandom community approach the topic of supercentenarians.

We still see, for example, in the SSA study of US supercentenarians, at age 110, about 65% of claims were false or unverifiable...and by age 115, that number rose to 98%. That data itself covered the study period 1980-1999. I would be willing to bet that if the study were re-done today, with more up-to-date information, the percent of cases that were unvalidated would be different.

In other words: at one point should be start to say that "extreme vetting" of supercentenarian claims may be too much? I think we ALL agree that if someone claimed to be "120", we should NOT accept the claim unless there is "extreme vetting." But what about age 117? Age 115? Age 113? Age 111? What should the level of skepticism be?

I have therefore devised a "sliding scale" system: age 110-114: we call the cases "unverified supercentenarians", letting the general reader know that the case may or may not be true, and we are not strongly suggesting that the case should be viewed skeptically...only moderately so.

Unvalidated claims 115-130="longevity claims": with a less than 2% chance of being true, if a case isn't validated by age 115, we really need to add another layer of doubt (and Jean-Marie Robine of the IDL has said as much).

For claims to 130+, we assign these to "longevity myths", prima facie. Most extreme value theorists have calculated the maximum human lifespan based on present levels of mortality and population size to be between 123 and 125 or so. Adding five more years is pushing it. Most mainstream scientists agree that age 130 is not possible without "life extension" and should be viewed as not a literal or credible claim.

Applying a sliding scale is actually something that institutions have discussed for quite some time. For example, the IDL employs a two-document standard for age 105-109; a three-document standard for age 110-114; and a four-document standard for age 115+.

The Gerontology Wiki is NOT THE PLACE FOR ORIGINAL RESEARCH. IT IS INTENDED TO BE AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. It is based on what outside, reliable sources say. We are not vetting cases here (or shouldn't be). The Gerontology Wiki, in theory, applies the basic core principles of Wikipedia of neutral point of view, reliability, and no original research.

Question 3: If a claim such as Olga Agar is not listed in an "unverified" list, it's probably not there because no one bothered to put it there. We have categories that she would fit in. If she is not here, it doesn't mean that anyone here on the Gerontology Wiki is passing judgment on the case. It means that the Wiki is "under construction" and no one has made an article on her yet.

When it comes to "unverified", we try to be as "one size fits all" as possible, within reason. If a case doesn't even have a claimed date of birth and appears to be frivilous, it doesn't need to be included. I see no reason to exclude the Olga Agar claim from this particular article. Indeed, this article is meant for cases such as hers.

Let's not forget that the Gerontology Wiki is "under construction" and it's been less than two years since the current plan launched: August 15, 2015. There are still many issues in regards to controlling vandalism, for example, that remain to be resolved.