Link: http://www.technolog...e_aging.asp?p=2
Sherwin Nuland is a professor of surgery at Yale and an excellent writer.
I especially like this quote..
The sheer output of his pen and tongue is staggering, and every line of that bumper crop, whether intended for the most scientifically sophisticated or for the general reader, is delivered in the same linear, lucid, point-by-point style that characterizes all his writings on life prolongation. Like a skilled debater, he replies to arguments before they arise and hammers at his opposition with a forceful rhetoric that has just enough dismissiveness—and sometimes even castigation—to betray his impatience with stragglers in the march toward extreme longevity.
You go Aubrey..
Sherwin makes no bones where he stands..
I should declare here that I have no desire to live beyond the life span that nature has granted to our species. For reasons that are pragmatic, scientific, demographic, economic, political, social, emotional, and secularly spiritual, I am committed to the notion that both individual fulfillment and the ecological balance of life on this planet are best served by dying when our inherent biology decrees that we do.
Him and Kass must have great dinner parties together..
and further he bases much of his writing on following premise... which should be of no surprise..
Not only does the science seem more than a little speculative, but even more speculative is the assumption on which the entire undertaking is based—namely, that it is a good thing for the men and women now populating the earth to have the means to live indefinitely.
As I read through the article I am struck by the tone of admiration in Nulands words however.. and his astuteness
Even my brief 15 minutes with them was sufficient to observe the softness that comes into de Grey’s otherwise determined visage when Adelaide is near, and her similar response. I suspect that his website photo was taken while he was either looking at or thinking of her.
it was.... I took it.. Adelaide was on his right.. one of the few moments they had to spend together at the hectic IABG10..
Original
and this comment is just plain mean spirited...
De Grey believes that once aging has been reversed in mice, billionaires will come forward, intent on living as long as possible.
... not all billionaires would fund aging just for personal gain.. case in point being John Sperling.
He refuses to budge a millimeter; he will not give ground to the possibility that any of the barriers to his success may prove insuperable.
exactly what the problem of aging needs..
and this makes me howl..
If we are to be destroyed, I am now convinced that it will not be a neutral or malevolent force that will do us in, but one that is benevolent in the extreme, one whose only motivation is to improve us and better our civilization. If we are ever immolated, it will be by the efforts of well-meaning scientists who are convinced that they have our best interests at heart. We already know who they are.
We'd better add 'Aubrey' to the Threats to Life Forum.
To his credit he bashes the whole of biogerontology's efforts to help people live longer in his last paragraphs though.
The whole of the article was more an ode to the genius of Aubrey de Grey than a detraction and he offers only his own insistence that Aubrey's 'grand design will most certainly not succeed' although he doesn't give a single supporting word as to why except the usual 'it's so complex.'.
The paucity of negative comments and plurality of positive makes me wonder if the author wasn't attempting some reverse psychology on the reader.. rather strange actually. You done hip-no-tized the man Aubrey..