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Obsolete ideas and logical confusions can be obstacles for biogerontology research

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Abstract

Some misconceptions can be an obstacle for biogerontology research. These misconceptions can be classified in two categories: (1) obsolete ideas in biology, for example “aging has a universal cause” and “living beings are like machines”, and (2) conceptual and logical confusions, such as “longevity is not dependent on other life-history traits”, “between-groups variability allows to infer conclusions about individual variability”, and “the burden of the proof lies with the opponents to the hypothesis”. This opinion article describes these problems in the hope it will help to overcome them.

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks are due to Guy Beugnon for his helpful comments on a first draft of the article. I express my gratitude to the anonymous referees for their highly constructive comments on a previous version of this article.

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  1. Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, UMR CNRS 5169, Université Paul-Sabatier, 31062, Toulouse 9, France

    Eric Le Bourg

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Correspondence to Eric Le Bourg.

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Le Bourg, E. Obsolete ideas and logical confusions can be obstacles for biogerontology research. Biogerontology 14, 221–227 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10522-013-9418-7

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