I was puzzled, when an aged friend handed me this book to read. Tom Kirkwood was professor of biological gerontology at various English Universities and began research on aging in 1974.
Part 1 is a series of lectures given to BBC radio. He talks about Soma cells that make up the human individual, believed that there are no genes on aging, and considers men a pinnacle of evolution, with defects to be reconstructed, like the birth of undeveloped children through a tight pelvis. He also wonders why Japanese live longer in Japan, than elsewhere.
I wondered about Tom Kirkwood rather one-side view on research where he does not question the consequences of anti-aging and a possible disastrous commercial exploitation of age-delaying medicine.
I was going to put the book down, as being on a wrong track, but read on to the last chapter, a science fiction story of an age-postponing society. Tom Kirkwood gave now a contrasting picture as a result of what seemed to be his lifelong zeal, quite interesting to read.