SENS. This is the first of what will hopefully be many attempts to break down the aspects of SENS, scrutinize and describe them in terms suitable for well-educated layman, and then judge the currently suggested solutions. If the current solutions are optimal, then we've bolstered an important program. If they are inadequate or have competing solutions that can be presented, then we have the basis for ensuring that, should de Grey's program move forward, we have ideas on the back burner. Who knows, we might even come up with something more suitable to the problems at hand.
Dr. Aubrey de Grey has laid out seven causes of aging, and one or more solutions to each problem. Well, with debates happening recently, there have been some asking for details on how to fix SENS, if we perceive problems. In other words, don't just criticize, but offer a solution.
Well, I'll start with one of my own, based on reviewing the debates of the last week and of the last year.
7 points. Okay, basically the same. We outline the same seven causes. This is an important base, because if no one disputes it, then we have outlined the basis for competing SENS theories, and we can let the scientific marketplace battle it out and take the best one to three winners when the dust settles. Then we're not dependent on the scientific judgment of a single man, regardless of how brilliant he is. Putting all our eggs in one basket is a bad idea when 100,000 lives a day are at stake. If it's all we've got, and if unity of message brings us funding and public acceptance faster, that may alter the equation. But from a purely scientific perspective, we need to foster competing strategies if they can be as rigorously defended.
Okay, with the seven causes in place, we need to go a little bit deeper. I will use only chromosomal DNA as an example, because it's the one that I have the best understanding of, and there are already competing ideas on the table for how to fix it.