BOOKSThe Longevity Revolution: The Benefits and Challenges of Living a Long Life
by Dr. Robert N. Butler (Author)
(Hardcover) $30.00
March 2008
Dr. Robert N. Butler, M.D., President & CEO of International Longevity Center, is a gerontologist, psychiatrist, and a Pulitzer Prize winning author.
Dr. Butler recognized discrimination against the elderly as early as 1968, coining the term “ageism.” Eight years later, the publication of his Pulitzer-prize-winning "Why Survive? Being Old in America" solidified his reputation as someone who foresaw the impact that aging would have on American society.
"Dr. Bob Butler's Longevity Revolution is truly a masterful piece of work. No individual has done more, here in the US - or throughout the world - to raise awareness of the challenges and opportunities, the fears and hopes of our longer lives. Serving as both physician and philosopher, Dr. Butler brilliantly charts the landcape of an increasingly longer-lived 21st century."Comments by Dr. Ken Dychtwald, San Francisco, Ca.
"In the past Robert Butler relied more on scientific expertise of experts like Leonard Hayflick, who considered radical life extension to be neither possible nor desirable. Now the tone seems to be changed. Radical life extension is not considered as a "wild speculation" any longer.
"This book seems to be rather tolerant to the idea of life extension. For example, here are some excerpts from pages 13 - 14:
"Indeed, some believe that humans can master their evolution. Among them is Aubrey de Grey of Cambridge University, who suggests a life expectancy of five thousand years by 2100 [17]. The philosopher John Harris of Oxford views extraordinary longevity from another perspective when he considers the possibility of immortality and its consequences for mankind [18]."
"No attempts to ridicule, or even to challenge these statements are made further in the book, as one may expect. It looks like a shift towards more tolerance to life-extension ideas."
Comments by Dr. Leonid Gavrilov, Ph.D.
