From: Brett Paatsch (bpaatsch@bigpond.net.au)
Date: Tue Jul 22 2003 - 03:48:41 MDT
Aubrey de Grey wrote:
[re: quote below from Hall's Merchants of Immortality]
> > "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
> That's the right document, but the endorsers did not include
> Austad.
Good for Austad! I read his book Why We Age (pub 1997)
and found it made a lot a sense even to a layman like me.
It's reassuring to have him on the same (optimistic) side.
> They were:
>
> Robert Arking, Allen Bailey, Andrzej Bartke,
> Vladislav V. Bezrukov, Jacob Brody, Robert N. Butler,
> Alvaro Macieira-Coelho, L. Stephen Coles, David Danon,
> Aubrey D.N.J. de Grey, Lloyd Demetrius, Astrid Fletcher,
> James F. Fries, David Gershon, Roger Gosden, Carol W.
> Greider, S. Mitchell Harman, David Harrison, Christopher
> Heward, Henry R. Hirsch, Robin Holliday, Thomas E.
> Johnson, Tom Kirkwood, Leo S. Luckinbill, George M.
> Martin, Alec A. Morley, Charles Nam, Sang Chul Park,
> Linda Partridge, Graham Pawelec, Thomas T. Perls,
> Suresh Rattan, Robert Ricklefs, Ladislas (Leslie) Robert,
> Richard G. Rogers, Henry Rothschild, Douglas L.
> Schmucker, Jerry W. Shay, Monika Skalicky, Len Smith,
> Raj Sohal, Richard L. Sprott, Andrus Viidik, Jan Vijg,
> Eugenia Wang, Andrew Weil, Georg Wick and
> Woodring Wright.
>
> > "- flatly asserts that dramatic increases in life span are
> > unlikely."
>
> This is true, and nearly stopped me signing the document,
> but it was a relatively isolated statement in an article mainly
> focused on what we can do today, so I let it go. The first
> draft I saw said "a virtual impossibility ", so I reckoned
> we'd met half way.....
A Google count on +"The Prospect of Immortality" +"Hayflick"
threw up 93 hits so I think, given the list of endorsers, this is a
paper that's impact is likely to be, or already is, quite substantial
in popular science terms at least.
From what I've seen of Hayflick in the media though, I did
not think he was leading any charges. From memory, the last
time I saw him, he was "putting in a good word for dying"
and (my paraphrasing) "clearing the world of cantankerous
old codgers".
> > "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."
>
> This is a blatantly misleading quote, because the above
> statement appears entirely separately from the discussion of
> life extension and refers very explicitly to infinite lifespans
> rather than indefinite ones.
Indefinate and infinite are looking to be important distinctions.
[Ramez Naam notes in a related post]
> Why did several very good researchers on aging sign
> onto ["The prospects of immortality"] in SciAm? Because
> for every person making statements about the future of
> human longevity that are grounded in some sort of plausible
> scientific comprehension of the field, there are hundreds
> who are talking nonsense. Many of those talking nonsense
> are making money from it.
>
> This drives reasonable scientists in the field nuts, and
> incents them to put as much distance between themselves
> and the "kooks" who are talking about radical life extension
> as possible. This happens to the extent that reasonable
> scientists substantially understate their true expectations
> of the field, for fear of being tarred with the "kook" brush.
I've no doubt that some are making money talking and
selling nonsense but I think that the demand side of the
genuine anti-aging market, is unlikely to be shut down
simply because a lot of people will try drinking snake oil first
or have to learn to be smarter consumers whilst picking
the gum leaves from their teeth. From a business standpoint,
an unsatisfied customer in the anti-aging market seems very
likely to remain a prospective customer (whilst still alive)
in that same anti-aging market. To the consumer I think the
take home lesson is not going to be 'give up and die' but
find another product or search for a more reliable vendor.
The real danger, imo, is that some of the products are so
bad that the government jumps in with another FDA style
block to protect fools from themselves.
Venture capitalists, if they are worth a damn should be able
to tell the difference between crap and chocholate, or at least
the good ones should learn pretty quickly so that the only real
loosers over the mid to long term are the quacks and charlatans
themselves.
Perhaps, I am not certain of this, but perhaps the quacks and
charlatans are only shooting down their own personal
reputations? There are still laws against fraud, and
mis-representation in most western countries.
What would be an interesting test would be to see if
either Michael West or Craig Ventner could *still* raise
funds, say for something like the Methesulah mouse project.
The problem in getting a proven fund raisers behind a project
like the Methesulah mouse project may be that there is no
immediate pay off in it for themselves as the project serves
as a mechanism (albeit an effective one) for raising awareness.
Seems what is needed is a sort of Bob Geldolf to organise
a concert and become famous for 'being altruistic' or perhaps a
large pharma to step up, put its chin out and say this is a
project that indicates our conviction that anti-aging will be
a legitimate and important direction for us (as a corporate)
in the future.
For researchers and academics, the $ prize would probably
be secondary to the professional kudos anyhow.
Brett
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