When Your Body Ages Too Fast

Alvin

Alvin

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
We’re starting to understand more about Werner syndrome, a genetic disorder that makes people age too quickly. Could treating it help us all age more slowly?
Click to expand...
...
Horvath’s team analyzed blood cells from 18 people with Werner syndrome. It was as if the methylation marking was happening on fast forward: The cells had an epigenetic age notably higher than those from a control group without Werner.
Click to expand...


https://slate.com/technology/2019/05/werner-syndrome-speeds-up-aging-search-for-a-cure.html
 
"Could treating it help us all age more slowly?"

We all know what the author is getting at here. But what grammatical error is this? It's not a tautology. It's not an oxymoron.

It's not right but for the life of me I cannot recall what it is called and I used to teach this shit.

Clearly, my brain can relate to the article.
 
It is stated that cell repair damage could be a cause to this. But @duncan I am not sure most poeple die out of aging, pretty much anything could cause death and aging being a possibility.
 
Sorry, @Dudden , I did not explain myself well. I was trying to figure out what error it is to say someone can "age more slowly". Age and time go hand in hand. You cannot age more quickly or slowly. Your body can show signs of aging more rapidly or slowly - there are diseases that do this. But in an absolute sense, you age as the clock ticks.

I suppose I am cutting hairs. I was just trying to identify the fallacy. Didn't mean to detract from the thread. And technically "age" can be used to mean deterioration, it's just a secondary meaning, but nonetheless...

So never mind. :)
 
duncan said:
Sorry, @Dudden , I did not explain myself well. I was trying to figure out what error it is to say someone can "age more slowly". Age and time go hand in hand. You cannot age more quickly or slowly. Your body can show signs of aging more rapidly or slowly - there are diseases that do this. But in an absolute sense, you age as the clock ticks.

I suppose I am cutting hairs. I was just trying to identify the fallacy. Didn't mean to detract from the thread. And technically "age" can be used to mean deterioration, it's just a secondary meaning, but nonetheless...

So never mind. :)
Click to expand...
No apology necessary @duncan .
 
duncan said:
I did not explain myself well. I was trying to figure out what error it is to say someone can "age more slowly".
Click to expand...

If it was an error it might be a category mistake as defined by Gilbert Ryle in The Concept of Mind (1949ish).

But maybe 'to age' in the sense of to deteriorate is the primary meaning. Primary meanings of verbs often do not track logically from the noun. Do we ever use 'to age' meaning just to exist later?

We say 'but she has not aged at all', 'the Book of Kells is finally beginning to age', ...
We do not suggest that a hydrogen atom has aged - because it never changes its composition.

Of course things get complicated when you start constructing complex verbs like 'he has aged well' - which I guess again demonstrates how meanings do not track the way we think they should. I spent a merry year in a philosophy department discovering that philosophers tend not to cotton on to this - as Wittgenstein said about 'language going on holiday'.
 
NelliePledge said:
There’s a certain clique of psychologists and liaison psychiatrists who should take up academic philosophy then because they desperately need therapy for being lost in one hell of a word muddle.
Click to expand...

Oh, but they have - they always mention Descartes, although it seems they have not read him.

And the mentioning of Descartes via allusion to Ryle, who seems to have got Descartes back to front too.

No doubt they are fans of Kant.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom