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The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

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Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#41

Post by jacquesm »

javert wrote: post #37

This article is full of blatantly faulty "logic." Maybe de Grey is guilty as charged, but this article is just irresponsible, reprehensible noise. It's OK up to the cryonics comment, as far as I can tell; after that it just becomes sarcastic. For example, making sarcastic comments about a person's alibi does not mean the alibi is actually false. Another example - the author states that he will judge de Grey based on…

That's a fair criticism of the article, it would have been a lot stronger without all the junk.

Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#42

Post by hobofan »

I don't think Aubrey de Grey is a good guy, and for anyone that is seriously interested in longevity research, it is known that he is mostly an old mascot that has kicked off a lot of (public, though not so much scientific) discourse in that field, but he and his foundation hasn't produced much by themselves.

Having said all that, the dismissal of longevity(/rejuvenation) research in general by the author (and many of the comments here) is incredibly shallow. While Aubrey de Grey highlights his mitochondiral research in his book "Ending Aging"[0], he never claims that it is a silver bullet for aging and most off the book revolves around different parts to the puzzle that have all to be solved in order for consistent rejuvenation to succeed.

A few years later "The Hallmarks of Aging"[1] (which outlines a similar approach to the book) was published in Cell and is widely recognized as a milestone paper and "roadmap" on what problems need to be tackled on the road to longevity. There are also now many biotech startups tackling exactly those problems outlined, producing real drugs that are currently in trials (e.g. Unity Biotechnology[2]), and the rate of more of them popping up is only accelerating.

I could try to write even more here to convince you that longevity research is a worthwile pursuit (and not just vaporware), but it's probably better if you read up on the topic for yourself, for which I can strongly recommend /r/longevity[3] and the resources listed there.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Ending-Aging-Rejuvenation-Breakthroug...

[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836174/

[2]: https://unitybiotechnology.com/pipeline/

[3]: https://www.reddit.com/r/longevity/

Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#44

Post by zozbot234 »

sebringj wrote: post #33

From a laymen perspective, I see David Sinclair as the clear leader in this field with actual lab results to back it up. https://sinclair.hms.harvard.edu/research I only remember Aubrey de Grey talking and presenting a lot but there wasn't the level of substance that seemed satisfactory to me. Ad hominem alert... Aubrey gives me the sensation of scratching a chalkboard with his strange social life and terrible hygien…

The kind of research Sinclair does is quite plausibly complementary to de Grey's in many ways. Sinclair focuses on epigenetic changes in nuclear DNA as a key factor, which SENS would probably classify more broadly as "senescent cells causing trouble" aka ApoptoSENS. OTOH Sinclair's research does not have many tie-ins to the broader field of regenerative medicine, which is where de Grey's approach might have more value.

Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#45

Post by jjgreen »

Trasmatta wrote: post #26
masklinn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being good at mathematics also does not preclude crankery. Quite the opposite really, if you can see the theoretical underpinnings of reality it’s a short step to believing you know everything. Gödel was famously on the far side, suffering from an obsessive fear of being poisoned and starving to death when his wife was hospitalised because he refused to eat anyone else's food.

Gödel was very mentally unwell (what seems like severe hypochondria and probably other things as well) but he definitely was not a crank.

This, crankery (in mathematics) has a rather specific meaning, there's even a book: https://bookstore.ams.org/spec-4

Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#46

Post by stormageddon »

javert wrote: post #37

This article is full of blatantly faulty "logic." Maybe de Grey is guilty as charged, but this article is just irresponsible, reprehensible noise. It's OK up to the cryonics comment, as far as I can tell; after that it just becomes sarcastic. For example, making sarcastic comments about a person's alibi does not mean the alibi is actually false. Another example - the author states that he will judge de Grey based on…

I don't think it even starts off that well. Close to the beginning it makes it sound like AdG is telling people he can make them immortal, which is a flat out lie. In podcasts and interviews as recent as a few weeks ago I remember he has corrected questions along those lines, saying nothing will stop a bus from flattening you for example. Ending ageing and ending death are completely different things.

Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#47

Post by zajio1am »

jacquesm wrote: post #23
nynx wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that’s an interesting take. Aside from the likelihood that aging treatments are likely to be free or subsidized by governments to avoid having increasingly old populations, what do you define as my normal lifespan? Should I avoid cancer treatments if I get it later in life? What about heart disease? Or Alzheimer’s? For better or worse, you cannot make those value judgements on others.

No, feel free to get all those. But the moment that your life-extension becomes the shortening of someone else's is where the problems really begin. Resources are finite, we are already straining our eco-systems to (and beyond) the breaking point. At some point we will need some limits to avoid losing it all. Quite possibly we are already past the point of no return in that sense. I think the first time when humanity…

> Resources are finite, we are already straining our eco-systems to (and beyond) the breaking point.

That has simple solution - you could have either life extension or children, but not both.

Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#48

Post by zozbot234 »

jacquesm wrote: post #40
zozbot234 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but by that standard all basic research in medicine with no short-term application to humans is "just milking gullible people". There's not much in there that's specific to SENS.

Not really, because the bulk of that research is at least based on solid scientific principles whereas what de Grey has been peddling always read as 'made for investors' rather than aiming for specific results. I always figured that Mollers sky car would fly long before de Grey would deliver a result (and I consider Moller to be longest running investor scam in history besides the Catholic church).

The fact that the SENS approach can even lead to "made for investors", plausibly-viable biotech spinoffs is, if anything, a validation of its scientific plausibility. Don't get me wrong, you could fairly describe it as a niche, fringe, unpopular approach and perhaps discount it on that basis, but it's at least not so fringe as to be entirely useless.

Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#49

Post by jacquesm »

zajio1am wrote: post #47
jacquesm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, feel free to get all those. But the moment that your life-extension becomes the shortening of someone else's is where the problems really begin. Resources are finite, we are already straining our eco-systems to (and beyond) the breaking point. At some point we will need some limits to avoid losing it all. Quite possibly we are already past the point of no return in that sense. I think the first time when humanity…

> Resources are finite, we are already straining our eco-systems to (and beyond) the breaking point. That has simple solution - you could have either life extension or children, but not both.

Are you proposing forced sterilization of people that have received their longevity treatments?

Re: The success of Aubrey de Grey baffles me

#50

Post by jacquesm »

zozbot234 wrote: post #48
jacquesm wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, because the bulk of that research is at least based on solid scientific principles whereas what de Grey has been peddling always read as 'made for investors' rather than aiming for specific results. I always figured that Mollers sky car would fly long before de Grey would deliver a result (and I consider Moller to be longest running investor scam in history besides the Catholic church).

The fact that the SENS approach can even lead to "made for investors", plausibly-viable biotech spinoffs is, if anything, a validation of its scientific plausibility. Don't get me wrong, you could fairly describe it as a niche, fringe, unpopular approach and perhaps discount it on that basis, but it's at least not so fringe as to be entirely useless.

No, it's mostly a proof of the fact that investors do not usually have a good grasp of what they are investing in. See also: Theranos, Moller, uBeam and many others besides.

And in the case of de Grey specifically, that Pascal's wager is alive and well.

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