Why don’t we live as long as Methuselah?
Lifespan decay, genetic entropy, age of fathers, Methuselah
Probably the most striking feature of Genesis 5 is that our ancestors lived about 10 times longer than people do today; the longest recorded is Methuselah, living for 969 years. This should be believed because God’s Word says it, and He was an eye-witness. Modern science is now shedding light on possible mechanisms.
Unlikely Mechanisms
- Pre-flood Paradise
- Higher Oxygen content
- Higher Atmospheric Pressure
Since the change in environment is inadequate, in the 1990s, it was proposed that the decline in lifespans had genetic causes. Indeed a genetic basis for longevity has been demonstrated in animals, e.g., fruit flies, such that genes for longevity can be lost from a population. ... One of the problems with old-earth belief is that humans add over 30 new mutations every generation. The overwhelming majority of these are not eliminated by natural selection. This should cause an exponential decay in fitness. So if humans had been around for as long as evolutionists claim, we should have become extinct from the huge mutational load. That we have not become extinct is strong evidence that humans have not been here for longer than a few thousand years.
Recent advanced computer simulations vindicate this proposal, showing that an exponential decay of lifespans fits well with accumulating mutations after the catastrophic population bottleneck at the Flood. This can be seen from comparing the decay curve produced by the computer simulation with the recorded lifespans from Noah to the present day.
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