9 replies to this topic

[gavrilov]

Greetings,

Here is a new turn in hot scientific debates over the SENS Life-Extension Project, and Aubrey de Grey's "Ending Aging" book http://tinyurl.com/357jzd

Recently a new chapter came out in a book published by the Springer publisher:

Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics:
Biopsychosocial Approaches to Longevity
http://tinyurl.com/2opjy6

Chapter 3 of this book entitled "The Promise of Human Life Span Extension" and written by Dr. Preston W. Estep III, contains the following section:

"SENS Brings Neo-Lysenkoism to Longevity Research"

Here are some excerpts:

"Agenda-driven pseudoscience like SENS has a clearly stated goal, but wishful thinking and extrascientific considerations, such as political or fundraising power, are placed ahead of and are often incompatible with scientific evidence.

There have been many examples of agenda-driven science, but SENS is strikingly similar to Lysenkoism, a name given to the pseudoscientific misdirection of Soviet Biology lead by Trofim Lysenko." [in Stalin period]
...

Stay tuned for the response from Aubrey de Grey !

Meanwhile watch for possible comments at:
http://tinyurl.com/26yclt
and
http://www.facebook....?gid=8126691324

[kevin]

Greetings,

Here is a new turn in hot scientific debates over the SENS Life-Extension Project, and Aubrey de Grey's "Ending Aging" book http://tinyurl.com/357jzd

Recently a new chapter came out in a book published by the Springer publisher:

Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics:
Biopsychosocial Approaches to Longevity
http://tinyurl.com/2opjy6

Chapter 3 of this book entitled "The Promise of Human Life Span Extension" and written by Dr. Preston W. Estep III, contains the following section:

"SENS Brings Neo-Lysenkoism to Longevity Research"

Here are some excerpts:

"Agenda-driven pseudoscience like SENS has a clearly stated goal, but wishful thinking and extrascientific considerations, such as political or fundraising power, are placed ahead of and are often incompatible with scientific evidence.

There have been many examples of agenda-driven science, but SENS is strikingly similar to Lysenkoism, a name given to the pseudoscientific misdirection of Soviet Biology lead by Trofim Lysenko." [in Stalin period]
...

Stay tuned for the response from Aubrey de Grey !

Meanwhile watch for possible comments at:
http://tinyurl.com/26yclt
and
http://www.facebook....?gid=8126691324

Estep refuses to say die when it comes to his views on SENS despite his failure to convince a panel of judges that "SENS is so wrong that it is unworthy of learned debate".

One might think that losing the SENS Challenge hosted by the Methuselah Foundation and Technology Review would have been enough, if not to convince Estep, but at least perhaps fear for his own credibility. Apparently not however because although he accepted the terms of the challenge and panel of learned judges and submitted his essay for their criticism, when he received their verdict in his response letter he points to his failure as being the result of judges "who know little or nothing of the existing learned debate within gerontology and life-extension research." Note that Estep adds the qualification to the criteria of debate 'within gerontology and life-extension research'. Nice to see how he feels he can narrow the interpretation unilaterally after-the-fact. I'm sure Craig Venter and the other learned judges would appreciate Estep's assessment of their ability to judge the value of technology.

Regardless, I am certainly not going to buy this book solely to read the same irrelevant diatribe from someone with an axe to grind and whose view on the value of SENS has already roundly discredited by a panel of experts with more credentials than this author.

I hope Aubrey takes exactly the amount of time to respond that this so richly deserves, which is to say, none, as to do so would be a distraction from actually getting the work done that will lead to aging interventions, rather than talking about how it can't be done, as Estep seems to continue to do.

KP

Edited by kevin, 24 February 2008 - 05:31 PM.

[bgwowk]

It's difficult to respond without reading the full chapter, but superficially there seems to be a major failure to distinguish science from medicine. The agenda of science is the determination of how nature works. However the agenda of medicine is making and keeping people healthy. So of course medical research has an agenda. Agendas in medical research are not an indictment, they are a defining characteristic. Without explicit clinical agendas, research would just circle around and around problems, elucidating them in ever greater academic detail, never to benefit of anyone. This has been cited as a problem with some cancer research, and, sadly, almost all of gerontological research to date.

The agenda of SENS is explicitly the treatment and cure of senescence, not just academic study of aging. Could it be that critics actually don't understand the distinction between pure and applied research, or is the confusion deliberate?

[kevin]

...
The agenda of SENS is explicitly the treatment and cure of senescence, not just academic study of aging. Could it be that critics actually don't understand the distinction between pure and applied research, or is the confusion deliberate?

I believe this to be the case in almost every situation and that it is actual misunderstanding which by its obviousness appears as almost wilful. It truly is hard to believe, but I can't fathom another explanation. I think as a corollary to this perspective comes a love and almost elevation of process where it becomes a purpose in and of itself. For some, I believe process is purpose with results being the side-effect of discovery rather than the reason for it. When there is no hope for an optimal result, eg 'reversing aging', it is natural to focus on discovery for its own sake, however when it becomes obvious that outcomes of some avenues offer more in terms of result, one would think one would shift priorities. In this light it seems to me that the obtuseness exhibited by many scientists with respect to applied purpose-driven research may be simply their way of dealing with hopelessness of doing anything about aging in their lifetimes..a variation on the "pro-aging trance" which spurs them to inaction.

[maxwatt]

It is ironic that Estep chose to compare SENS to Lysenkoism, in that recently Lysenko's theories have been rendered a bit more more plausible, with the discovery of extra-genetic inheritance.

[gavrilov]

On a substantive part this new book chapter reviews scientific literature on extensive damage of nuclear DNA with age, including accumulation of numerous epimutations, and claims that this massive corruption of nuclear genome is understated by SENS.

[jaydfox]

On a substantive part this new book chapter reviews scientific literature on extensive damage of nuclear DNA with age, including accumulation of numerous epimutations, and claims that this massive corruption of nuclear genome is understated by SENS.

Well, it's been pointed out in various SENS-related debates here that some people do feel that the SENS platform doesn't give non-cancer (epi-)mutations enough attention. However, for what it's worth, the purpose of SENS is not to cure aging outright, but to treat the types of damage which arguably lead to the major age-related causes of death, sufficient to buy perhaps 30 years on average (thus bootstrapping us to longevity escape velocity, or whatever it's called these days).

If all seven of the SENS strands were sufficiently dealt with, I find it hard to believe that generic (epi-)genetic would still be sufficient to cause death well within 30 years of the current mean age. Especially when you consider that random failing organs could be replaced outright by stem cell therapies, we'd have to be talking about either a complete systemic shutdown (plausible, but highly likely?), or the loss of the brain. Aubrey's well aware of the brain as a potential problem, as were all the players in previous debates, so I don't see this area being ignored. Progress is being made on independent fronts anyway, so while I suppose there is that small chance that the problem won't be solved, I don't think anyone in Estep's position could credibly say that there's not at least a reasonable chance of achieving the 30 year goal. I don't see generic (epi-)mutations as a roadblock to an initial successful round of SENS.

Now, whether we'll get beyond that 30 year goal is more speculative. But the point of SENS isn't to cure aging, just buy us 30 years or so...

[gavrilov]

...
Now, whether we'll get beyond that 30 year goal is more speculative. But the point of SENS isn't to cure aging, just buy us 30 years or so...

So, 30 years more, and then what?
(just kidding... )

Speaking seriously I am puzzled why this book chapter is not accompanied by another chapter there written by Aubrey de Grey with his responses.

[Mind]

Dr. Estep will be a guest on the LongeCity Now podcast, coming up soon.

Edited by Mind, 23 April 2013 - 09:46 PM.

[hav]

When I was watching game 4 the 2013 World Series a few days ago, that su2c.com thing they did peaked my curiosity to google world mortality rates. Which lead me to the SENS 2007 paper by Aubrey De Grey. His statement below peaked my curiosity even further:

Aging kills 100,000 people every single day. To elaborate: of the roughly 150,000 deaths that occur each day across the globe, somewhere around two thirds are due to causes that kill hardly anyone under the age of 40. If a cause of death is strongly age-related, it’s a death from aging, even if the medical profession might categorise it otherwise. Road accidents are an instructive example: some road accidents are of course entirely age independent, being the result of mechanical failure, sleeplessness and the like, but many are due to the slowed reaction times, failing eyesight or loss of capacity for sustained concentration that old age inexorably heralds. In the industrialised world, the proportion of deaths that are due to aging is much higher than 2/3 – indeed, it approaches 90%.¹

Going back to De Grey's source, I see how he came up with those numbers. It looks like he made the assumption, only hinted to in his statement, that all deaths over the age of 40 are due to old age. I can see how someone might think an assumption like that might be a little bit over the top. In any event, I pulled the source he used and tried to regroup the totals for a little more of an objective analysis. I think regrouping is necessary because those numbers in the original source were grouped in such a way as to advocate the proposition that hunger is the most important issue. I think the regrouping also shows that perhaps cancer fear might be a bit out of proportion. Particularly when compared to cardiovascular issues which, no matter how you slice things, always seems to stand out.

 Deaths_2001.jpg   129.95KB   8 downloads

Personally, if I were to pick an age bracket to approximate deaths from old age, I'd go with 60+. Mainly because that's roughly when I became aware of my own aging. All the percentages I list are relative to total deaths. I've attached the spreadsheet in case anyone wants to do some alternate totaling.

Howard

Attached Files

•  Deaths_2001.xls   36.5KB   2 downloads

Edited by hav, 29 October 2013 - 06:06 PM.