Predictions in Anti-Aging Medicine: An Anthropological Perspective

C.E. Mykytyn
Independent Scholar

In the rapidly emerging field of anti-aging medicine, predictions have provided the scaffold around which the field is evolving, being contested, and practiced. While contemporary anti-aging clinical practice is hotly debated and often derided, the research and hope for future therapies has captured a great deal of public and scientific interest in the past decade. Many anti-aging proponents foresee a not-so-distant future in which the process of aging itself will be retarded, stalled and perhaps even reversed.

Social scientists have argued that the history of science itself has been one of refining predictions and thus, that predictions have always been a crucial backbone of scientific practice. From an anthropological perspective, predictions are interesting as analytic objects in and of themselves because of the variety of ways they shape contemporary work. When successful and seemingly credible, predictions can marshal intellectual, cultural and economic resources. Additionally, predictions define problems against a critique of the status quo and mandate their pursuit based on the moral good of their promise. Therefore, predictions do not merely illuminate a possible future, but can shape the future and are also both morally and scientifically critical in orienting what gets done or attempted today. This presentation provides an anthropological overview of predictions as a cultural enterprise alongside an examination of some of the predictions within anti-aging medicine.