>I pretty much assumed it was common knowledge. I think I first heard
>it in
>high school public health, again in college, probably associated with
>either
>some genetics or public health course I took.
Seems like it shouldn't be too difficult to find some corroration.
>The other alternative would mean that the human body is aging at
>roughly
>half the rate that it used to, i.e. that time is slowing down,
>subjectively,
>I would think.
You've posed a false dichotomy. Those are not the only possibilities.
If people died at forty due to inadequate nutrition, non-existant health
care, and unsanitary living conditions, it doesn't follow that they had
the phyisology of someone who now lives to be eighty. It certainly
doesn't mean that time is slowing down. How would anyone know whether
time had slowed down? What does it mean to say that time has slowed
down? Slowed down in comparison to what?
Take care. -KMO