Some sage suggestions

Resumen

The esteemed editors of this series assume that those of an advanced age (me) are also wise (who, me?). That is a questionable assumption. At an earlier time, there was an empirical literature on this topic, in part conducted by Paul Baltes, although I do not know the final conclusions. But if there is an age-wisdom relation, it is correlational and it may not be that increasing age (experience) increases wisdom, but rather that the wise are more likely to survive. The latter explanation is consistent with a biological (Darwinian) viewpoint. If that is the case, then the editors could also invite younger people if they were able to identify (measure) wisdom. Also, it is likely that the age-wisdom relation is not linear but rather curvilinear such that wisdom increases with age, peaks, and then is followed by a lowering along with other cognitive declines due to the aging process. That perhaps describes my current state, hopefully before the decline, so it is unfortunate that the editors did not start this series many years ago and invite me at that time (making the very questionable supposal that I passed their wisdom test).

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