Anticipatory measure: Alex Comfort, experimental gerontology and the measurement of senescence

Moreira, Tiago

Abstract

Ageing is routinely measured by counting the number of years lived since the birth of an individual but at least since at least the 1930s, the validity, precision and sensitivity of chronological age as a measure has been criticised across the biological and behavioural sciences of ageing. This quest that has been reinforced by the contemporary investment in the possibility of technologically manipulating the rate of ageing to delay the onset the age-associated diseases. This paper explores the epistemic, institutional and political conditions that led to the formulation, at the turhn of the 1970s, of Alex Comfort's (1920–2000) seminal proposal to measure human biological ageing rate. Drawing on published and archival sources, I argue that Comfort's suggested measure of ageing can be understood as a form of ‘anticipation work’, and should be understood as an effort to evidence, and to make present, the technological and social promises that Comfort linked to experimental gerontology.

Citation

Moreira, T. (2019). Anticipatory measure: Alex Comfort, experimental gerontology and the measurement of senescence. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 77, Article 101179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2019.101179

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 23, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Jun 25, 2019
• Publication Date: Oct 31, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jul 8, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 25, 2020
• Journal: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
• Print ISSN: 1369-8486
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 77
• Article Number: 101179
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2019.101179