Is Defeating Aging Only a Dream?

I still lean towards Aubrey's point of view but it is great to see it being debated seriously like any theory should be. At least we are past the flying pig stupidity!! My thanks to the 3 gents who took up the challenge because right or wrong you are helping the progress of science by putting your serious efforts into it.

I made a few initial comments at Fight Aging!:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/000872.php

I think these attacks on SENS - well, two attacks, one criticism - are chiefly interesting for illuminating some mindsets that I might not have thought were widespread. The submission by Mobbs in particular is interesting on that count, with its mistaken idea that SENS treats symptoms rather than causes. I can see how that would arise from the perspective of a mainstream engaged in trying to slow aging a little by manipulation of metabolism. But it fails to consider that repair of damage is the more important determinator of healthy life span.

It is amazing to see how much effort is invested into the SENS critique.

This alone indicates that the SENS is receiving attention of the scientific community.

My personal opinion is that both sides are right -- the SENS projects is perhaps too risky for governmental grant funding now, but what harm could it bring if supported by private philanthropy ?

Leonid Gavrilov, Ph.D.
Website: http://longevity-science.org/
Blog: http://longevity-science.blogspot.com/

I've written up some detailed thoughts on the critiques from a transhumanist perspective at Digital Crusader:

http://digitalcrusader.ca/archives/2006/06/the_sens_challe.html

Eric Boyd
http://digitalcrusader.ca/

Mr. Grey bores me. He is non-consequential, at best, and, at worst, hurtful in the pursuit of a worthy goal, the extension of human life. Religion bores me too. They both make claims that are difficult to refute and that can't be proven, and find the difficulty to refute their claims as proof they should be believed. zzzzzz. I do get excited by science. Maybe that's because it actually proves things, and you can directly apply it into developing technologies to have real impact. That's exciting, and that is what I want to read about in the MIT technology insider. My sincere suggestion to Mr. Grey is spend less time talking about what could be, and more time realizing now what can be. You'll find the latter ends up being the quicker path to where you want to go.

Nice that TR has judges for this proposal.  I am SOOOO tempted to write this off as just a new guise for the nearly univeral wish not to die.  Up until now, it was either a belief in an afterlife or a willing suspension of disbelief in some science fiction scheme [remember the Heaven's Gate cult?].  Separating a fervent wish from the rest of ones reasoning is a great challenge.  Noting the fear that fuels the wish may help but almost seems too obvious.  Where are Durk and Sandy when we need real experts on life extension;?)
Given that the topic of living for a longer than usual life span is older than the bible and absolutely rife with BS, I think we need to read de Gray with all the skepticism in evidence here and more.
---the envelope please?

Anyone with half a brain could plainly see that the critiques were intelligently done and followed proper methodoligies including their rebuttals.  Aubreys rebuttals were clearly emotionally laced and extremely oversimplified almost everything, and more importantly almost always misinterpreted the statements by the critiqing scientest. 

I would love to live long too but i can tell you that all he has done is appeal to emotion and make fantastic claims about what may be one day.  He has also not provided any proof that the SENS technique will be safe or do what it claims it will particularly because it hasnt been created yet.

One word... Pollycock.

In one of earlier answers to Leonid Gavrilov, Aubrey de Grey explained that SENS is not a theory but a project (like sending the man to Moon). How can you judge viability of such a challenging project today? What is the most likely result by the most knowledgeable judges today?

ANALOGY: Try to imagine you live one hundred years ago in Russia, and a top scientific committee was just asked to express their judgment on the work of Konstantyn Edward Tsyolkovskyy, father of modern cosmonautics. In 1883 he produced the manuscript "Free space", in which first offered thoughts about possibility of subjugation of space by a reactive device.

 
  Improved Health Via Involvement  

by Janine M Lodato


 
    
(The Mind-Body Interaction on the Web)


I have been fighting MS, in specific SPMS, for the last thirty years and now I am a cripple in a wheelchair. At present I am in the process of writing important books and technical articles. I enjoy being busy. However, after fighting off an assault of multiple sclerosis (MS), my hands can no longer type.


I am quadriplegic and most people when they see me cannot deal with my problems. I am a useless cripple in their eyes, a burden on society. But my aging geek husband and caregiver, a Hungarian revolutionary, said it well: "nobody is a cripple on the Internet". The Internet is a great equalizer, the greatest ever invented.


So we had to put it in a poem. Poems are a great and short way to communicate, perfect for the Internet especially on small size screens

Now that you are discussing de Grey SENS, why not discuss the Law of exponential growth by Kurzweil.
His law is more powerful than de Grey, and de Grey's is only a SUB-SET of Kurzweil's.
EM

        I have now completed my reading of the Pete Estep, et al's attack on "SENS
as Pseudoscience" (18 pages) and Aubrey de Grey's "rebuttal" (9 pages).  This was
not light reading.  And I am saddened that so much time and effort is being wasted
by very bright people on mutually discrediting one another rather than making joint
progress to advance the field.  The attacks from both sides are vitriolic and
counterproductive.  It's like two teams of alchemists attacking one another's efforts
to covert base metals into gold or silver in the absence of a Periodic Table of the
Elements or to construct an atomic bomb in the absence of E=mc2.  Instead, we
should be working to establish the fundamentals of the aging process in the context
of the complete genome, proteome, metabolome, and systems-biology networks
for all mammals.  In my view, in the absence of these "data points," a really

Looks to me that if I could live forever, I would be even more paranoid of death...of accidents, bullets, or choking over a fish bone....

Personally, I'm not much interested in *living* longer.  But if I could retain the physical appearance (and possibly health) of an 18 year old when I die at a "normal" age, that would be just fine with me :-P

Aubrey  de Grey is one of the brightest minds alive in the world,  He is  the man with the plan  we need to join and falow
to defeat aging,.!
http://www.defeataging.com/

Although the latest SENS Challenge article contains quotes from the judges' verdict, nowhere can we find the complete document. TechReview need to provide full transparency--give us the full verdict!

Think about it! This publication looks pretty biased on this issue from the start. This is obvious as you can see from the first SENS articles in TechReview: "Against Transcendence", written by the Executive Editor himself, and "Do You Want to Live Forever?" whose author, Nuland, is also the author of "How We Die", and his view that ""Among living creatures, to die and leave the stage is the way of nature...". Nuland's view is fine by itself, as people can always disagree on these basic issues, but the fact that TechReview chose him to write a featured article about SENS, instead of someone with a more neutral viewpoint, does not seem very good for us, a readership who would rather have a nonbiased report.

It looks like some changes in the way this magazine is edited should be in order.

Retirement plans were designed for retirement to happen after the average age of death.  ie in 1930s average life expectancy was 54, SS benefits were set to 62.  If SENS works then SS should start at 900.
I meet 80yr old, active voters, who don't mind sucking at the collective teet for 20 years.
Should we expect to pay them, and
massive medicare bills for EVER?
Will Aubrey's methods make us
healthy active breeders, or just
hangers on?
If someone is rich enough to do this for themselves, so be it.
This should not be a RIGHT.
"Everybody everywhere should expect these treatments and to live forever."

finally the legitimacy of s.e.n.s

is undisputed,   witch only shows

jsut how narow minded, and dumb are those people   who discredit it, soo becouse dosent fits  tehre
litell  box in there litel brains

I suspect Morpheus was joking, jon. He was implying that SENS enthusiasts are not particularly bright or educated, but are cheerleaders of a fanatic sort. The mispellings and caps weren't a very good joke, perhaps--but they were a joke.

I found the description of the issue for the competition by the judges very problematic.  Nathan Myhrvold, writing for all the judges, offered this summary that “At issue is the conflict between the scientific process and the ambiguous status of ideas that have not yet been subjected to that process”.  In my view, this is a total misunderstanding of the real issue in the debate.  The real focus of the debate or the competition for essays in this debate is whether de Grey’s idea on SENS is legitimate (logical and scientific) and thus worth of a scientific testing process. 
Except from a Commentary published in Logical Biology (http://logibio.com)

while the competition are really in a great need for more submissions and even broke its published terms for getting an otherwise unqualified essay into the first round reviewing process, a legitimate submission that once was considered as “Perhaps your essay will be the winning essay from the 2nd batch” was eventually rejected on the ground of so-called “substandard” English after the manuscript had been in the hand of the editor and after it was forwarded to de Grey for over two months.  These irregularities plus other suspicious signs such as allowing most non-biologists to judge the competition suggest that the so-called scientific competition is in fact a camouflaged publicity event aimed to attract some readership to a falling consumer magazine.
- Excerpt from a Commentary published in Logical Biology (http://logibio.com)

It is unbelievable that for a biology sentence some non-biologists are actually the judges.  It is even funny to see that these engineers actually accuse biologists (some of them are actually true experts in gerontology) of making “poor criticisms of a legitimate engineering process”.  So in this engineers-dominated court, SENS, even if is “not exactly science”, is “a kind of engineering project”.  So de Grey’s proposals exist in a kind of “antechamber of science” and just “wait (possibly in vain) for independent verification”.
- Excerpt from a Commentary published in Logical Biology (http://logibio.com)

Dr. de Grey's reply to Liu's criticisms (Logical Biology 6: 39-46, 2006) is no published in Logical Biology 6: 50-51, 2006. Both articles are free at http://logibio.com.
Contributions to join a fair debate and constructive discussion on aging are welcomed by Logical Biology.

It is through mutation of cell and junk collection cellulaly that has enabled man to evolve to present condition and survive,cancer is antiaging it does not die treatment kills the subject,its all evolutionary.

I can't wait to get readin' all o' these. Counter-arguments, rebuttals and so forth.

I love criticizers. They play a most important role, keeping a branch of science on it's toes, poking holes in theories. That's how we truly understand the kinks that might come up, as this is the greatest edeavour humanity has basically ever undertaken.

Discrimination by English scientific journals against non-English authors (either non-native English-speakers or simply people without English names) has been often felt by “foreigners” (not necessarily by citizenship).  However, many times this unethical behavior of the reviewers and/or the editors was un-challengeable or, even when complained, over-powered.  Using Jason Pontin, the editor-in-chief of MIT Technol. Rev., as a straw man and his behavior of using so-called “substandard” English for rejecting a legitimate competition essay, this open letter is starting a war against unequal and unfair practices in scientific publishing.

Abstract from an Open Letter published in Scientific Ethics (1: 97-99, 2006; http://im1.biz/se) which is freely available to anyone.

  
 

  A Revolutionary is Always a Revolutionary 


by  Janine M Lodato

~|__
     ( o )\_


In Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution 




LodatoClan@aol.com










50 years ago the then young Hungarian student revolutionary was fighting for his life as he was breaking through the heavily defended and fortified Iron Curtain. This true story was beautifully described by his handicapped wife in her book titled: "From The Iron Curtain to Pebble Beach" available on www.Amazon.com.

But more on this later on in this essay.

Now, as an aging Silicon Valley type, he is fighting again for life. This time for the lives of the many people in need of caregiving and for the political support needed by. their caregivers. He is doing this in support of www.unity08.c

Of blessed memory of a scientist Dr. Aubrey de Grey.

A SENS project and a tragedy of biogerontology.
Olexiy Boyko, Ph.D.
Nation’s Health Institute, Kiev.
http://www.izn.com.ua/index_engl.htm




This is the grave of the late Ukrainian-Soviet Aubrey de Grey’s precursor, academician A.A. Bogomolets (1881-1946). Who according to Joseph Stalin “promised eternal life but died at 65 – a scoundrel”.
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