From: Brett Paatsch (bpaatsch@bigpond.net.au)
Date: Mon Jul 21 2003 - 01:06:37 MDT
From: "Ramez Naam" <mez@apexnano.com>
> > Yet another of our pet topics gone mainstream:
> >
> > http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/07/19/aging/index.html
> >
> >
> > "...SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- Fancy living
> > another 100 years or more? Some experts said on Saturday that
> > scientific advances will one day enable humans to last
> > decades beyond what is now seen as the natural limit of the
> > human life span.
> >
> > "I think we are knocking at the door of immortality," said
> > Michael Zey, a Montclair State University business professor
> > and author of two books on the future. "I think by 2075 we
> > will see it and that's a conservative estimate..."
>
> I was actually rather uncomfortable with this. Zey made
> this pronouncement without any real scientific grounding.
> (I saw his talk at World Future Society this weekend, where
> John Smart, Jose Cordeiro, and I were also speaking.) I
> worry that loud public statements of this sort without a solid
> scientific basis are more harmful than helpful.
For some reason I can't get to this link.
Actually this was also a bit of a pattern shown (according
to Hall in MoI), by Michael West. Beyond mere enthusiasm
and positive thinking about ones enterprises there are strong
commercial incentives to hype ones business ventures in
the media. Investors presumably like to see the companies
and personalities they have invested in reported on in the
press. The press makes it easier to raise funds, at least whilst
some semblance of scientific credibility can be retained. They
serve as a source of free advertising. But at the end of the
day, if the hype doesn't get realised, the suggestion is that
more harm is done than good.
West apparently reported the production of a six celled
"embryo" via SCNT as a breakthrough in human cloning
and was roundly and robustly criticised by the scientific
community for making the claim firstly in the media and
without serious peer review and secondly at a time when
the overstatement could have had particularly adverse
effects on the legislative environment being debated around
therapeutic cloning. What would have been regarded by
scientists as a failure, (the attempted clone got no further
than six cells), West tried to plug as progress. And
apparently it was felt that this was irresponsible science
and played straight to the misperception that reproductive
cloning was imminent.
Not only West, but I think Ventner and Hasseltine have also
used similar hyped statements in the media as a means to get
free publicity and thereby facilitate further funding or boost
stock prices. Its all part of the game.
I am not sure myself though that the overhyping is always as
much as a problem as it is held to be. I guess it depends on
the individual case.
In which *particular* respects do you think hyped statements
like Zey's may be more harmful than helpful?
Brett
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