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This may sound far out, but some scientists speculate that ours will be the last generation that will have to die. Advances in cellular biology and cybernetics, they contend, are bringing us closer to the point of "indefinite life extension." Death, they suggest, will soon become a choice rather than a fact of life.

Whether or not that is realistic, how do people feel about the prospect of such an unprecedented reality? Are we eager to achieve immortality, or do we prefer life as it is now and has always been?

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the United States and Israel explored this weighty question in a recent paper published in the Journal of Individual Differences. Interestingly, they found that men favor indefinite life extension more than women, and they suggest novel reasons why this may be the case.

To arrive at this conclusion, the researchers designed a series of experiments to test various facets of men's and women's attitudes toward indefinite life extension. In one experiment, 1,593 undergraduate participants at the University of Arizona were asked five questions that measured their beliefs regarding indefinite life extension. The questions were:

To what extent do you support scientific efforts to slow the aging process?

To what extent do you support scientific efforts to increase the human lifespan indefinitely?

If technology existed to extend the human lifespan indefinitely, I would want to use it. (Agree/Disagree)

I believe that scientists should not pursue efforts to extend the human life indefinitely. (Agree/Disagree)

To what extent would you like the opportunity to use technologies to extend your own life indefinitely?

The researchers combined participants' responses to these questions into an overall measure of favorability toward indefinite life extension. They found that men were significantly more likely than women to support it.

Next, the researchers conducted a follow-up study to better understand the source of the difference. They speculated that two factors might be at play — and attitudes toward science. Past research, for instance, has shown that women are generally more religious than men (women attend church more regularly in Australia, Canada, the U.K., and the U.S., and they are more likely to believe in God). Women also tend to have more negative attitudes toward science. The researchers surmised that philosophical positions on science and religion might shape people's attitudes toward indefinite life extension.

In this second study, the researchers recruited a sample of 1,021 undergraduates and measured attitudes toward life extension, religion, and science. Again, they replicated the finding that men are more likely to endorse indefinite life extension. As expected, men also professed more positive attitudes toward science while women exhibited higher levels of religiosity.

Critical to their hypothesis, the researchers then tested whether beliefs regarding science and religion might be producing the gender difference in attitudes toward indefinite life extension. Indeed, they found this to be the case. Using a statistical technique known as mediation analysis, the researchers showed that attitudes toward both science and religion were implicated in defining participants' attitudes toward indefinite life extension; more favorable attitudes towards science enhanced support for life extension while strong religious attitudes diminished it. They note, however, that the effect was strongest for science-related attitudes (e. ., “I’d like to understand more about the scientific explanation for things” and “science is very important to the future of mankind").

What might this all mean? Well, not all that much at present. However, as we move closer to a future in which the human lifespan may be less constrained by natural biology, these questions will become increasingly important. The researchers write, "By better understanding gender differences in attitudes toward indefinite life extension, we may learn more about why people may or may not support its research and development and perhaps even anticipate reactions to its implementation, in the event that indefinite life extension begins to become a reality."