Abstract
The statistical paper human life is short-but unlimited is briefly discussed. The possibilities and limitations of statistical inference concerning very long human life spans are considered. The restricted models of tail distributions that arise from assumption of renormalized convergence of max- or conditional peaks over thresholds-distributions are questioned in the application context of the reviewed paper. The restrictions of natural systems designs on possibilities of extreme life spans, and the potential to adopt modified extreme value models, allowing seasonal variation of death rates, are also pointed out.
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I wish to thank my colleague Docent Marija Cvijovic for valuable discussion and help with the biological references below.
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Nerman, O. Discussion of “human life is unlimited-but short” by H Rootzén and D Zholud. Extremes 21, 411–413 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10687-018-0331-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10687-018-0331-y