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I watched the news video twice and I strongly think the woman is lying. The woman certainly is old but I would estimate no older than her late 80's. The main thrust of why I believe the woman is lying:
1. The world record for the longest documented lifespan was Jeanne Calment of France of 122 years age and typically the old person alive at any moment is usually around their mid-110's. (Wikipedia). Yet, we are to believe this woman living out in the middle of nowhere Africa, just happened to be really really really really luck. I don't know the numbers crunching math, but I would think the probability statistics of a woman living to 134 years of age, with the bell curve of expected lifetimes, is once in many thousands of years and I bet we're not so lucky.
2. Her appearance and behavior is discrepant and inconsistent with known longest agers. She's blind, she misses many teeth, but she seems too chatty and mentally intact. She has the mental capacity of your grandmother. She also didn't seem to match the frailness comparative to known longest agers. While it may be true some centurions live for 110+ years and still maintain a surprising degree of mental and physical agility, that seems more the exception than the rule and, I would think, is reliant upon living in a modern society with access to modern medicine, proper diet, lifestyle, and physical exercise regiments. Yet, this poor woman lives poor Africa.
3. Her official birth certificate states she is 134 years old, but births were not recorded when she was born and the birth date was admittedly accepted by her statement. She supposedly has 14 adult children, at least one daughter of 90 years age, but I question the veracity of their real ages and their real relationships to her.
I believe this is a case of not an individual but a whole community, from her neighbors to her local government, complicit in swindling a lie for publicity.
I watched the news video twice and I strongly think the woman is lying. The woman certainly is old but I would estimate no older than her late 80's. The main thrust of why I believe the woman is lying:
1. The world record for the longest documented lifespan was Jeanne Calment of France of 122 years age and typically the old person alive at any moment is usually around their mid-110's. (Wikipedia). Yet, we are to believe this woman living out in the middle of nowhere Africa, just happened to be really really really really luck. I don't know the numbers crunching math, but I would think the probability statistics of a woman living to 134 years of age, with the bell curve of expected lifetimes, is once in many thousands of years and I bet we're not so lucky.
2. Her appearance and behavior is discrepant and inconsistent with known longest agers. She's blind, she misses many teeth, but she seems too chatty and mentally intact. She has the mental capacity of your grandmother. She also didn't seem to match the frailness comparative to known longest agers. While it may be true some centurions live for 110+ years and still maintain a surprising degree of mental and physical agility, that seems more the exception than the rule and, I would think, is reliant upon living in a modern society with access to modern medicine, proper diet, lifestyle, and physical exercise regiments. Yet, this poor woman lives poor Africa.
3. Her official birth certificate states she is 134 years old, but births were not recorded when she was born and the birth date was admittedly accepted by her statement. She supposedly has 14 adult children, at least one daughter of 90 years age, but I question the veracity of their real ages and their real relationships to her.
I believe this is a case of not an individual but a whole community, from her neighbors to her local government, complicit in swindling a lie for publicity.
