From: Brett Paatsch (bpaatsch@bigpond.net.au)
Date: Sun Jul 20 2003 - 14:17:37 MDT
Aubrey de Grey writes:
>
> Brett Paatsch wrote:
>
> I haven't read MoI yet, but it sounds as though I should, even if it's
> not mainly a life-extension book.
>
> > Another point made in the book is that there are a number
> > of gerontologists and respected scientists like Steve Austad
> > and Leonard Hayflick (and around 49 others) who seriously
> > doubt that immortality will ever be achieved.
>
> Please post this quote.
In the Epilogue p345 hardcover at bottom.
"Leonard Hayflick and a number of other prominent gerontologists
have become so annoyed by the claims of life-extention enthusiasts
that they recently prepared a manifesto. The document - written by
Hayflick, S. Jay Olshansky, and Bruce Carnes and signed by a
number of scientific luminaries, including Robert N. Butler, Steven
Austad, Tom Kirkwood, George Martin, Carol Greider, and Andrew
Weil - flatly asserts that dramatic increases in life span are unlikely.
"The prospects of immortality," the scientists state, "is no more likely
today than it ever has been, and it has no place in a scientific
discourse."
> There was a "position statement" orchestrated
> by Hayflick and two others and endorsed by 48 more, whose main
> message was that *existing* so-called anti-aging medicine is a
> misnomer (which is why I was one of the 48), but which also
> (because of the bias of the organising trio) touched on longer-term
> prospects. But Austad refused to sign on.
Ok this fits with the reference in the notes. "The prospect of
immortality" : "Position Statement on Human Aging," courtesy of
L Hayflick.
> > a better approach to attacking the anti-aging, problem has been
> > suggested by Aubrey de Grey and this better (in my view approach)
> > has not been addressed by Hayflick or Austad.
>
> Correct, but deserving of a comment. Hayflick is simply very out of
> date on such issues and indeed has no real clue what I'm proposing in
> the necessary degree of detail, despite having taken part in my second
> roundtable (see my site http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens/ and the links
> on the left). Austad on the other hand is among the most optimistic
> of the senior cadre of biogerontologists in his public statements: he
> is the one who said that the first 150-year-old is probably already
> alive, and in fact he is now on record that the first 160-year-old is
> probably already 60. He isn't really as up-to-speed on the details
> of what I propose, but he's definitely at my end of the spectrum of
> professional biogerontologists, so if MoI implies otherwise he's been
> misrepresented.
The quote above is verbatum so it does looks like it. Could be
Hayflick provided Hall with an incomplete or draft position
statement.
> > I'd really love to see Aubrey discuss the ideas in his paper
> > "An engineer's approach to the development of real anti-aging
> > medicine ( http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens/manu16.pdf)
> > with the likes of Hayflick and perhaps especially Steve Austad.
>
> This may happen soon (with someone on Hayflick's side but much
> better informed and more influential). Watch this space.
>
> > The conventional approaches to
> > anti-aging are NOT going to lead to immortality or even
> > serious extension of life-spans soon, but Aubrey's approach
> > is more daring. Alas it is probably also a harder sell.
>
> Unclear. I always maintain that the only constituency I really need
> to get on my side, publicly, is a respectable number of my colleagues
> in biogerontology.
I was thinking of it as being a harder to sell to the general public (as
opposed to the Metheselah Mouse project which I think is excellent).
> I'm progressing quite well in that regard -- the
> conference coming up in Cambridge (http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/iabg10/)
> is another big step in that regard. Once people like Austad start
> promoting my way of thinking on the TV, the war will be over. That
> may be sooner than you think.
Sounds good :-)
> > there is a comment in the back of MoI where
> > Hall quotes Ali Brivanilou of the Rockefeller "the difference
> > between mouse embryological development at the molecular
> > level and human development was "night and day". "Everything
> > that we know about the mouse, (embryologically), we already
> > know is not true for humans".
>
> This is (a) hyperbole, (b) embryology, and most important (c) it is
> science rather than intuition. It doesn't matter a hoot how hard it
> will actually be to translate late-onset mouse life extension therapy
> to humans: what matters is that the general public will intuitively
> feel that it may be hard but there's a fighting chance that it'll be
> possible within a decade or two.
Hmm. A public that believes because of the Metheselah Mouse
project would be a formidable force to say the least. Your funding
problems would be over but I reckon the politics may still be
tricky. Still its a problem I'd *like* to have within the next two
decades. Given two decades and any current IP quagmires will
hopefully have had sufficient time to have sorted themselves out
as well. In fact as cancer and gene therapy will require resolutions
before then I'd say the IP probs will be gone but the cost of any
procedure will be pretty interesting.
> That public intuition will force
> public investment in pushing the effort to translate the technology
> to humans as fast as it can go. How fast that is doesn't matter,
> just as the war on cancer is getting just as much money now as in
> the 70s despite having, shall we say, rather overrun its schedule.
We're on the same page here :-)
Regards,
Brett
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