9 replies to this topic

[caliban]

As discussed more extensively in the Full members section

Huber Warner, Julie Anderson, Steven Austad, Ettore Bergamini, Dale Bredesen, Robert Butler,
Bruce A.Carnes, Brian F. C. Clark,Vincent Cristofalo, John Faulkner, Leonard Guarente, David E.Harrison, Tom Kirkwood, Gordon Lithgow, George Martin, Ed Masoro, Simon Melov, Richard A.Miller, S. Jay Olshansky, Linda Partridge, Olivia Pereira-Smith, Tom Perls, Arlan Richardson, James Smith,Thomas von Zglinickik, Eugenia Wang, Jeanne Y.Wei & T.Franklin Williams

have recently (EMBO reports 2005 1006-1008) signed up to the following statement:

None of us, however, believes [sic.] that plans to ‘engineer’ the body to prevent ageing indefinitely or to turn old people young again have the remotest chance of success.

I understand that people are annoyed by De Grey "and his ilk".
I understand that people are sceptical about the SENS programme.
I understand that people are daunted by the challenge to stop aging.

But the above statement is much more fundamental. If that statement is indicative of the author's general attitude, then -from the perspective of a philosophy of science- there is some cause for concern.

A scientist who dismisses of a route of investigation entirely risks cognitive bias, which can compromise not only the interpretation of data, but also the extrapolation of scientific strategy and the peer review process.

[Karomesis]

one could in fact argue, that such an attitude represents not just anti SENS, but a lack of proper scientific dicipline altogether. A true scientist, in my humble opinion, is one who interperts data in accordance with no prior bias.

Alot of people talk a good game, but when the buck stops where are their prepared arguments and data refuting SENS? I have yet to see a legitimate source, and frankly talk of such and such an idea being impossible is unbecoming of a scientist . It is the few rather than the many who come up with ideas that change the world, and to truly be called a "scientist" one needs to be open to assesing all data presented regardless of opinion or indifference to the outcome. Aside from that their "opinion" is worthless to me, because they have presented no evidence, empirical or otherwise, to refute the SENS proposal.

If one of them said they have a new groundbreaking study where the only logical conclusion is one of never defeating death, then by all means let's see the study, if not, then stop wasting our time with baseless arguments that lack "any remote" chance of legitimacy.

[John Schloendorn]

To be fair, they also (somewhat contradictorily) do admit that

it is foolhardy to try to ‘prove’ that a particular engineering problem can never be solved

and encourage Aubrey to

convince sponsors that his project deserves funding

Karo, the argument is that SENS does not present sufficient data to warrant the status of a respectable scientific proposal, so the need to present more data is entirely upon SENS advocates, rather than these authors.

[Karomesis]

John, what precisely is meant by "respectable scientific proposal"? I think the definition could differ, what is respectable to one scientist is snake oil to another, my question is why? Are there different methods being used to gauge the plausability of SENS and other proposals similar in nature? Perhaps we have bias once again rearing its ugly head.

[John Schloendorn]

I guess I was just using it in the tautologic sense of "that which a considerable group of leading scientists agree to call a respectable proposal". That's why the answer was "life-extension research extends beyond biogerontology"...

Traditionally, proposals of similar scope (e.g. Apollo, Manhattan projects) have been initiated by someone very rich who wanted something very badly, which left very little room for academic disagreement. We are not such a group yet, but we will need to get there.

[jaydfox]

To be fair, they also (somewhat contradictorily) do admit that

it is foolhardy to try to ‘prove’ that a particular engineering problem can never be solved

Maybe, but the statement caliban quoted is pretty black and white:

None of us, however, believes [sic.] that plans to ‘engineer’ the body to prevent ageing indefinitely or to turn old people young again have the remotest chance of success.

So yes, "somewhat contradictorily" is applicable here...

They don't say "None of us, however, believes that Aubrey's plans to ‘engineer’ the body ... have the remotest chance of success". That might be passible, in that they'd be attacking his specific approaches. But no, they just say "plans to engineer", in the most generic language possible.

This language shows an utter disrespect, not for Aubrey, but for science in general. They are trying to discredit Aubrey by discrediting the engineering approach in general. It is in this context that Aubrey's tongue-in-cheek analogy of scientists trying to solve the flight problem by flapping their arms is rather fitting: these scienists have no comprehension of what engineering can accomplish. If they had any respect for science, they wouldn't have made such a foolish statement.

Short of saying that "God makes us age", the only respectable scientific position to take is that their are very real and fundamental changes in the physical body, at the systemic, cellular, and/or molecular levels, that differentiate a body that's 20 years old versus 30 versus 40, etc. Once this is admitted, then we must admit that these changes can be modulated. After all, smoking, diabetes, etc., seem to accelerate these changes. Therefore, these changes are not fixed absolutely with respect to time. Theoretically, with advanced nanotechnology, even if of a sort not available for a thousand years, we should be able to nearly completely reverse these changes. That's engineering. And it has better than a "remote chance" of succeeding.

By ruling out such a possibility now, they make fools of themselves. It would have been better if they had merely said that "Aubrey's plans to engineer", or even just that plans to engineer in general, don't have the remotest chance of succeeding in the next 30 or 50 years, or some other such language that indicated that problem is not intractable, just not doable by the methods or in the timeframes Aubrey suggested. Then it would be a question of probabilities, and whose estimate do you believe more, etc.

[Aegist]

I find it frustrating that people can still be so blind. And then offensive that these people can be 'scientists'. I think scientific education needs to involve more education on the history and philosophy of science so that these professionals have a bit of an idea how their professions have come to exist. Most of it is through people in the past doing things that are impossible, challenging wisdom that was absolute, and generally questining the unquestionable. And here we are, proposing something that is entirely conceiveable, something which in no way stretcehs the imagination (ie: imagine not ageing...really, its very straight forward a concept), and they claim it is impossible.

The only basis I can imagine for claiming that SENS is impossible, would come from a religious or spiritual background. If you belevie god created us as we are etc, then sure, you may have some reason to beleive that science will never be succesful. But if you are in anyway atheistic or agnostic, then I think you are naieve to beleive that our understanding will never advance to such a state that our biological limitations are overcome. Wow is that naieve in light of our history.

[rjws]

Well I count 28 of em, Ive seen far more scientists sign up for forms of life extension. I hope these guys make escape velocity so well have a prime example of naysayers to laugh at.


If you've ever seen Hitchkikers Guide To The Galaxy , You can see from my sig how I feel about naysayers.

[Lazarus Long]

After listening to Jay and Aubrey in chat here and also because of the profound odds being faced I think everyone needs to reduce the comment to its most essential adjective; INDEFINITELY.

None of us, however, believes [sic.] that plans to ‘engineer’ the body to prevent ageing indefinitely or to turn old people young again have the remotest chance of success.

Before taking this debate too far remember that Jay in lengthy discussion tried to emphasize that he was not opposed to life extension but that he felt the quest for immortality was a fool's errand (to paraphrase).

I wouldn't try to interpret this comment as totally opposed to life extension research as much as a kind of realpolitik of life extension for funding approaches.

In that light I think the focus should be on the second part involving the investment in reversal strategies for aging as this reflects a profound difference in philosophy and also where the competition for research funding is likely to get the most vicious.

[brandonreinhart]

it is foolhardy to try to ‘prove’ that a particular engineering problem can never be solved

Wait a second. I don't necessarily agree with this. It can have value to prove that a problem cannot be solved. If you could demonstrate that a particular engineering solution violated another physical law or theory, you've have achieved something of value. You may have either 1) eliminated a path of analysis that isn't worthwhile or 2) found a case where said law or theory may be incorrect.

This kind of refutation is critical to the scientific process.

But this doesn't have any immediate bearing on the problem of SENS. Nothing in SENS seems to violate the laws of physics and the scientists who signed this declaration have not signed up to perform a critical investigation of SENS.

If one of these scientists said "I prove that X cannot ever be solved through an engineering method because of physical law Y" they would be making a statement with a certain level of versimilitude that could then be further tested against, etc.

In fact, as one who desires to see the results of real SENS research, I have nothing to lose and everything to gain through a critical investigation of SENS. Even proving SENS false moves the science forward significantly, allowing de Grey and others to integrate better information into their theories, arriving at more accurate models of human cellular biology.