METHUSELAH ARCHIVE METHOD
Editorial method

How this archive is made.

The Methuselah Archive documents life-extension interventions sold to the wealthy, from antiquity to the present. This page sets out how a case is researched, what counts as evidence, and how the work is disclosed and corrected.

What qualifies as a case

A case is admitted only when it runs the full five-stage cycle the archive exists to document: a charismatic practitioner, exclusive access sold at a premium, a vague or unmeasurable mechanism, a financial conflict in which the seller is also the authority on whether it works, and an eventual disconfirmation (a controlled test, a regulator action, or the practitioner's own downfall). Sober, evidence-based medicine does not qualify; the pattern does.

Sourcing

Every factual characterization is anchored to a cited source: a primary document, a peer-reviewed study, a regulator action, an established scholarly history, or the subject's own published material. Bibliographic identifiers (PMID, DOI, ISBN) are resolved against the issuing record — PubMed, Crossref, Open Library — rather than taken on trust, because fabricated-but-plausible citations are the characteristic failure mode of AI-written prose. A case that cannot be sourced is not published.

AI authorship, disclosed

Most cases are researched and drafted by an automated pipeline built on large language models, not written by hand. That pipeline does not publish on its own judgment. Each case passes deterministic gates — citation resolution, a conflict-of-interest and voice check, a living-subject scope check — and is then reviewed by an independent model from a different family before it goes live. The sources, not the model, are the authority; an AI "looks supported" is treated as a prompt to verify, never as verification.

Living people and active enterprises

The archive covers current products and the companies still selling them, and it keeps its critical voice when it does. The discipline is the same: every present-day claim is anchored to a cited source (a regulator, a peer-reviewed trial, a named expert, or the company's own materials), and the case states what the enterprise sells and claims today rather than implying it quietly faded. Criticism that a cited source does not support is not made.

Not medical advice

Nothing here is medical advice, and nothing here endorses any intervention — past or present. The archive's recurring finding is that these products did not work; descriptions of what was sold are history and criticism, not a recommendation. Consult a qualified clinician for health decisions.

Corrections

The archive aims to be accurate and to correct errors promptly. If a citation is wrong, a date is off, or a characterization outruns its source, the correction is welcome and will be made. Reach the archive at @MethuselahArch. The archive's text and metadata are licensed CC BY 4.0; images and other media are not — each is reproduced under its own terms (public domain, a stated license, or fair use). See the license page.