The most widely read story in Technology Review in 2005 so far was "Do You Want to Live Forever?," a profile of Dr. Aubrey de Grey, a British theoretical biologist and computer scientist at the University of Cambridge’s Department of...
Thursday, July 28, 2005
The most widely read story in Technology Review in 2005 so far was "Do You Want to Live Forever?," a profile of Dr. Aubrey de Grey, a British theoretical biologist and computer scientist at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Genetics.
De Grey believes that aging, like a disease, can in principle be treated and defeated. He proposes approaching aging as a problem in engineering through something he calls "Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence." SENS claims to identify the 7 causes of human aging and describes how each cause might be circumvented. De Grey is also the guiding genius behind The Methuselah Foundation, an organization which offers monetary awards to biologists who make significant advances towards reversing aging in mice.
The profile, written by Sherwin Nuland, a professor of clinical surgery at Yale and the author of How We Die, was mildly critical of de Grey. My column in the same issue, “Against Transcendence” was much more so. SENS, Nuland and I argued, didn’t make sense — it was best understood as a provoking challenge to biogerontologists. De Grey, we said, was possibly brilliant - but also obviously a psychological curiosity.
But de Grey is not just a provocateur. He is a mass movement: many technologists who cannot believe in a supernatural afterlife want to believe in the possibility of indefinite life through science. Thus, thousands of people wrote to our print magazine letters and electronic fora — and in many cases, they were very angry indeed. The more reasonable pointed out that Nuland did not directly criticize the biology behind SENS. (In fairness to Dr. Nuland, he was not asked to: I commissioned what I called a "profile in the style of The New Yorker.") In my reply to our readers, whilst conceding nothing, I promised to find a working biogerontologist who would take on de Grey’s ideas. But while a number of biologists have criticized SENS to me privately, none have been willing to do so in public.
This silence is puzzling (de Grey, less charitably, calls it "catatonia"). If de Grey is so wrong, why won't any biogerontologists say why he is wrong? If he is totally nuts, it shouldn't be so hard to explain the faults in his science, surely?
One possible explanation for the silence of biogerontologists is that criticizing SENS would require time and effort—and that working scientists are too busy to waste time on something so silly. Another explanation (one obviously preferred by de Grey) is that biogerontologists reject SENS out of hand without examining its details.
Technology Review thinks it would be useful to determine which of the two explanations is correct. If SENS has some validity, then we should take it seriously. Because if we can significantly extend healthy human life, we will have to ask--should we? And at a purely practical level, if we can extend life, and we want to do so, then governments and research institutions will want to invest a lot more money in biogerontology
Regardless of which explanation is correct, biogerontologists apparently need an incentive to consider SENS. To that end, Technology Review is announcing a prize for any molecular biologist working in the field of aging who is willing to take up the challenge: submit an intellectually serious argument that SENS is so wrong that it is unworthy of learned debate, and you will be paid $20,000 if it convinces independent referees. In the case that even $20,000 is insufficient to motivate the relevant experts, we also invite contributions to the fund; anyone wishing to pledge should contact me at jason.pontin@technologyreview.com.
The Terms of the SENS Challenge
1. The Challenge is open to any molecular biologist with a Ph.D. from a recognized academic institution who is now associated with a recognized research institution and who has published on biogerontology in peer-reviewed journals. Technology Review will rule on whether a given individual can enter the Challenge.
2. The purpose of the Challenge is to establish whether SENS is worthy of serious consideration. Submissions are sought that attempt to demonstrate that it is not.
3. Submissions will be judged by a review panel, entirely independent of Technology Review and the Methuselah Foundation, composed of recognized molecular biologists, clinicians, and engineers. The members of panel are to be announced.
4. De Grey will reply to all submissions. The biologist may respond. All three documents will be considered by the panel.
5. The initial Challenge prize fund of $20,000 will be paid by matching funds from Technology Review and the Methuselah Foundation.
6. Anyone who wishes to pledge to the Challenge prize fund may do so; they should contact jason.pontin@technologyreview.com, the Editor of Technology Review.
7. The form of the submission must be a core document of no more than 750 words, although additional footnotes, citations, and references can be of any length.
8. If the prize is won, the winning submission will be published as the “By Invitation” column in a forthcoming issue of Technology Review. The magazine will also print de Grey’s response.
9. Submissions should be sent to jason.pontin@technologyreview.com.
Aubrey de Grey, Longevity, Biogerontology, Life extension
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Comments
Guest (Charles) on 01/16/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
Guest (Hal Seyle) on 03/04/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
Guest (Guy) on 03/25/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
Guest (Dan Kolk) on 04/18/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
Guest (Michelle Delio) on 05/11/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
Guest (Simon Carter) on 05/25/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
... Anyone?
Thanks in advance,
Simon (Brisbane, Australia)
Guest (Aubrey de Grey) on 06/03/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
Guest (Simon Carter) on 06/04/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
Cheers,
Simon (Brisbane, Australia)
Guest (bochao Liu) on 05/28/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
Guest (wavefront) on 06/09/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html
Guest (NEO) on 06/12/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
for all u skeptics here its an eye opener,
http://www.cutepiggy.com/full_disclosure_project.html
Guest (MOrpheus) on 06/25/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
to defeat aging,.!
http://www.defeataging.com/
Boyko on 07/14/2008 at 1:35 PM
2
A SENS PROJECT AND A TRAGEDY OF BIOGERONTOLOGY.
Olexiy Boyko, Candidate of biological science (Ph.D.)
Nation’s Health Institute, Kiev.
Abstract
From the very beginning SENS Challenge is unscientific as per se it presupposes some mental experiments. Any mental experiments have since long been thrown away and rejected as a method of cognition. It was done by successful natural sciences to which our civilization owes the high level of its development. I mean physics, chemistry and other sciences but in biogerontology such experiments are still alive and the debates over The SENS Challenge prove this. Nevertheless it’s very easy to prove that Aubrey de Grey is a pseudo-scientist and his ideas are unscientific even without using any metal experiments as the base of his SENS collection of fanciful ideas (hypothetic technologies of a body juvenilities) are false and baseless aging hypothesis which directly connect certain cellular processes with the aging of the whole organism. Insolvency of these hypothesis is confirmed by the very fact of existence of species with negligible senescence (that is with the absence of visible signs of aging). Judging by this "Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence" (SENS) is really «so wrong that it was unworthy of learned debate» and Dr. Aubrey de Grey is a pseudo scientist for sure.
From the very beginning «SENS Challenge» is unscientific as per se it presupposes some mental experiments in the process of which a molecular biologist has to prove that Aubrey de Grey’s gerontology fantasies (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence – SENS) are [1] «so wrong that it was unworthy of learned debate». Mental experiments as a method of cognition go back to Aristotle. Aristotle was a great thinker and an evil genius of natural sciences who suspended their development for good hundreds of years. In particular he followed Plato in refusing from the principle of natural methodology – practices as the criterion of truth. That’s why the methodology of the cognition of the surrounding world with the help of logical arguments – mental experiments, is called aristotelism. Having freed from aristotelism just a couple of centuries ago, physics and a number of other natural sciences gave birth to that kind of technical civilization and to the would we live in at the moment. Naturally there arises a question: why did physics manage to follow this only reasonable way and biologists are still the slaves of aristotelism…. Debates around The SENS Challenge in The Technology Review just testify to this. We must admit though The SENS Challenge jury took the only possible and sensible decision and didn’t award the prize to any participant of The SENS Challenge debates [2], the only reason for which is that by way of mental experiments no one can really either prove or disprove this or that hypothesis. (From the purely formal point of view Aubrey de Grey’s fantasies are just a collection of fanciful theories).
Nevertheless I consider that it’s easy enough to prove that Aubrey de Grey is a pseudo-scientist and his ideas are unscientific (or “so wrong that they are unworthy of learned debate”) without applying to mental experiments. To attain this aim you just need to extrapolate the logic used by the Co-Chairman of the Counter Pseudo-Science and Scientific Research Falsification Committee with the Russian Academy of Sciences Vitaly Ginzburg who is by chance a Nobel Prize winner to prove the fact that astrology is a pseudo science [3] and to apply it to Abrey de Grey’s ideas [1].
So Vitaly Ginzburg states that in the past astrology was a real science as it was based on of the false idea about the interrelation between a personal fate and the movement of planets. Later it was proved that there was no such an interconnection and the exploitation of this false idea turned astrology into a pseudo science which voluntarily mixes facts with silly fancies.
Similarly in our days it became evident that hypothesis and ideas underlying modern bio gerontology which directly connect certain cellular processes with the senescence of the whole organism are false: all the variants of the free-radical hypothesis of senescence (including the mitochondrial free radical hypothesis of aging), the glycation hypothesis of aging and all the hypothesis connecting aging with accumulation of mutated proteins, accumulation of cellular and extracellular damage, theories connecting apoptosis with aging and so on.
Insolvency and falsity of any hypothesis directly connecting certain cellular processes with the aging of a organism as a whole are confirmed by the very fact of existence of animals with negligible senescence. Making this or that aging hypothesis or interpreting this or that aging phenomenon biogerontologists (and Aubrey de Grey is the first among them) as a rule miss the existence of multicellular species which are in fact not subject to aging and possess potential immortality which is not hampered either by the generation of reactive forms of oxygen or telomeres shortening, apoptosis and other processes with which aging process is normally explained. More than that, these species have long evolution history and their evolutionary progenitors in most cases also possessed potential immortality. Ignoring all these fundamental facts is likely explained by the very simple reason – researchers just can’t explain them.
Really, nowadays nobody could argue that Metazoa set of cellular mechanisms has specific differences. This is a feature which in the process of evolution has become stable enough and Metazoa are a single phylogenetic tree. But if both aging and non-aging Metazoa species with a similar set of cellular and molecular mechanisms equally exist then it’s highly probable that aging is explained not by cellular mechanisms but by something completely different, or for instance by certain design elements of species subject to aging. That’s not just a speculative conclusion but quite an evident one, as suspicious cellular processes of species non subject to aging don’t exclude their eternal youth. (We should mention though that those molecular processes which cause the very 7 key SENS damages according to Aubrey de Grey don’t exclude eternal youth either). That’s why the majority of hypothesis directly connecting certain cellular processes with the aging of a organism as whole have fulfilled their initial role and tuned both into a dangerous myth preventing the aging biology progress and into a metabiology branch which fills all fundamentals of aging biology and “Strategic for Engineered Negligible Senescence” in particular. As a result all the modern gerontology consists, as any metascience does, primarily of completely unproved hypothesis, dogmata, pseudo postulates, beliefs and SENS projects of Aubrey de Grey. The outcome is as follows: in the recent dozens of years there have been no serious technological breakthroughs in the sphere of sharp increase of human life span.
The conclusion can be the only one: further exploitation of hypothesis directly connecting certain cellular processes with the aging of a whole organism turn biogerontology into just one of numerous pseudo sciences and consequently scientists promoting these inconsistent theories have already turned into pseudo scientists. From this point of view Aubrey de Grey is by all means a pseudo scientist as the base of his SENS collection of fanciful ideas are just insolvent theories. Judging by this “Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence” is really “so wrong that it was unworthy of learned debate”.
More than that one of Aubrey de Grey’s SENS pseudo-postulates is not only unscientific but absurd in its essence. I mean his proclamation that aging can be defeated even if we don’t completely understand the nature of its process. If we cite his statement: “To interfere in aging, I realized didn’t require a compete understanding of all the myriad interacting processes that contribute to aging damage. To design therapies all you have to understand is aging damage itself: the molecular and cellular lesions that impair the structure and function of the body tissues” [1]. The absurdity of this stupid statement made by a Cambridge professor is clearly seen if we look at the example of the one of the hypothetic rejuvenation technologies proposed by Mr. de Grey. Here we mean regular (every 10 years) replacement of stem cells population of our body by new slightly modified ones with the simultaneous knock-out of telomerase gene. Supposedly this particular technology is destined to save us from aging and cancer at that. But Metazoa species with negligible senescence especially those which tend to be called modular ones can live up to thousands of years and even up to dozens of thousands years and for some reason (Why?) their stem cells don’t lose potency for such a long period of time and their telomeres for some reason again don’t either shorten or increase their length. Moreover they don’t have cancer tumors as often as we unhappy ones do. The same is true regarding genets reproducing in agamic way only characteristic of Metazoa species – in this case stem cells of all individual make one population which probably exists for millions of years losing neither its functions nor potencies for further existence. At the same time in inbred and syngeneic animals – mammals – in case of transplanting tissues and organs from young donors to old recipients youth tissues and organs with populations of stem cells or some reason (why, I would like to ask you!?) in an astoundingly short period of time take “normal” aging features. Ovary transplantation from young donors to old recipients is a good example to the point [4, 5]. Only when we found an answer to those two great Whys? we will be able to struggle aging and cancer with a good chance to succeed. That’s why there will be no any rejuvenation from even modernized stem cells populations replacement. Together with the pool of somatic cells generated by them they will age under the influence of the recipient’s body to the relevant age level.
Of course everything in our world is comparative. The absurdity of de Grey’s ideas and projects is comparative and relevant as well. For sure they are absolutely absurd in the sense of the revolution in gerontology and in rejuvenation perspective: can we speak of a divorce after 2685 years of family life, first pregnancy at the age of 3245 and magic love at the age of 6798, space flights at the age of 20637, etc. But at the same time as the experience of the late Ukrainian Soviet precursor of de Grey (late academician Bogomolets) shows one can’t exclude that implementation of some of de Grey’s ideas and technologies could still in a tiny degree (and it will be great progress for sure!) influence the life span of laboratory animals. Possibly in the course of SENS implementation certain medicines will be developed and they will save the humanity from a number of horrible diseases, etc.
At the same time I suppose that modern biology data base lets offer a prototype of technologies capable of abolishing the biological phenomenon of aging together with carcinogenesis. That’s why we can’t doubt the usefulness of SENS project as an initiating one even in its present fanciful form. Even if an initiating hypothesis turns false and is proved as false in the course of experiments it promotes the cognition farther than repetition of hundreds of excellent ideas. From this point of view de Grey’s SENS program is worth discussing. If you journal offered a prize for a better than de Grey’s SENS project instead of unscientific “SENS Challenge” debates that would be a really great step forward to final defeat of aging. In particular our group could offer a really comprehensive project of defeating aging (including carcinogenesis) but based on more natural sources and completely free of fancifulness characteristic of de Grey’s project.
The arguments of my submission are so evident and so solid I would say that taking into consideration that “the challenge remains open” [2] Technology Review has nothing to do than to pay up the remaining part of the prize to me, but the very fact of the repayment would prove not only the insolvency of Dr. de Grey’s ideas but mainly would prevent or at least slow down the gradual movement of biogerontology into the realm of metabiology (which is an analogue to metaphysics). But on the whole Dr. de Grey death as a scientist and his transmutation into a science fiction writer is a tragedy and not only his personal one because he doesn’t seem to notice that. This is a really planetary tragedy and the victory of unscientific revolution. In this respect we can’t but say a few good words about the late Pope John Paul II. It was he who voiced in favor of protection of science from all kinds of discrimination and subjugation. In John Paul II encyclical [6] he stated that a really antiscientific revolution takes place all over the world. And October 15, 1998 at the Vatican Academy of Sciences session the term “antiscientific revolution” was first pronounced and main reasons for this revolution were named. Among these reasons one of the first places belongs to false ideas and theories propaganda. For sure the Pontific is right: there is likely to be a serious crisis in science (and in biogerontology it has already arrived long ago, and de Grey is not a Blue Beard at all but just another victim of anti science coup), the realization of the reasons and the nature of which should attract attention of both the society as a whole and researchers biogerontologists in particular.
REFERENCES
1. de Grey A., Rae M. 2007. Ending Aging. New-York: ST. MARTIN'S PRESS
2. Pontin J. 2006. Is Defeating Aging Only a Dream? // Technology Review. (Tuesday, July 11)
3. Potapov A. 2008. [Vitaly Ginzburg: there exist a great number of ignoramus and swindlers] //Official site of Molecular and Biology Physics department of Moscow Physics and Technical Institute – URL: www.arptek.ru/i18n [RUS]
4. Kushima K., Kamio K., Okuda V., 1961. Climacterium, climacteric disturbances on rejuvenation of sex center // Tohoku J. Exp. Med. V. 74. P. 113-129.
5. Aschheim P., 1976. Aging in the hypothalamic-hypophyseal-ovarian axis in the rat // Hypothalamus, Pituitary and Aging/Eds Everitt A., Burges J.A. Springfield: Ch. ? Thomas. P. 376-418.
6. John Paul II. 1998. Encyclical letter «FIDES ET RATIO» of the supreme Pontiff John Paul II to the bishops of the Catholic Church on the relationship between faith and reason // URL: www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html