Have you ever spoken to Harold before?
Yes, for some two hours on the phone. My impression is quite similar to yours. He seems genuinely convinced that he is inevitably doing the right thing, and can eloquently express this belief, which is fine. However, this is no reason to expect that he would be capable to ever make a helpful contribution to saving everybody's life.
Wow, that comment made me sound pretty dumb. [mellow] I'm embarrassed.
If John is engaged in some type of innovative research, then to some degree I would assume he would happily entertain questions and constructive criticisms with respect to the methodology and implementation. In fact, I see engagement as an open opportunity for John to present his research to the widest possible audience.
Dr. de Grey seemed pleased to engage in debate in the
The SENS Challenge. However, I guess some of those debates might have been more fruitful and interesting because the debates were judged by several highly distinguished individuals:
Rodney Brooks, PhD, director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and chief technical officer of iRobot Corp. IRobot is one of the most successful makers of robots in the world.
Anita Goel, MD and PhD, founder and chief executive of Nanobiosym.
Vikram Kumar, MD, cofounder and chief executive of Dimagi, and a pathologist at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
Nathan Myhrvold, PhD, cofounder and chief executive of Intellectual Ventures, and former chief technologist at Microsoft.
J. Craig Venter, PhD, founder of the Venter Institute. Venter developed the process called whole-genome shotgun sequencing, which sped up the human genome project.
Although some of these debates may have degenerated into ad hominem argumentation and other nonsense, it still managed to capture the attention of some members of the scientific (and non scientific) community.
The
real SENS challenge is -- in my book at least -- is not to necessarily solely prove that "Aubrey de Grey's prescription for defeating aging, is so wrong that it is unworthy of learned debate." It is to prove "Aubrey de Grey's prescription for defeating aging, is so wrong that it is unworthy of learned debate" by finding a better alternative than SENS -- if there is one
and proving it exists by implementing it --.
There is a big difference between being a player on a team than being that drunk dude up in the stands screaming and yelling the whole time. If you are up in the stands, it's much easier to shout at your team when they are losing and get up and shout when they are winning. However, if you are actually playing on the field, you begin to see the game a lot differently. I kind of see Harold as that dude up in the stands. He's still on your team -- yes, he may yell some seemingly rude stuff at times, but when you are winning (or show that SENS is truly effective on a large scale) he'll be screaming just as loud in your favor.
However, John -- if I were you, once I stated my methodology and implementation methods, I'd just permit Harold to continue to offer his responses and get to them as you please. The bottom line is you can always counter any of Harold's attacks on SENS (or any other research for that matter) with a simple reply that indicates in a professional manner that he has not brought any evidence of any of his own research methodology or implementation, so to stuff it until he can. Because as much as I like debate, it's just talk. You guys are doing something in the laboratory and Harold is still fantasizing about it.
)
Edited by nootropikamil, 01 November 2006 - 01:50 AM.
LongeCity
