Dr. Preston Estep was the lead author of a submission written by a group of nine scientist for the MIT Technology Review SENSE Challenge, in which they were highly critical of Aubrey de Grey's plan for comabating aging (SENSE). I am given to understand that in this review they accuse de Grey's science of bringing Lysenkoism[wikipedia] to modern aging research.
Some thoughts on this:
1.
If de Grey is Lysenko and he is succsessful in winning the public opinion and the scientific community don't speak up they will have allowed de Grey to delay age related research. But if they speak up against SENSE and it turns out that it was in fact the right approach all along they will again have retarded age related research and either way cost thousands (millions?) their lives.
1a
Does this have anything to do with why so relativly few scientist are saying anything definitiv in print? Are they afraid of endorsing the wrong line of research?
1b
Are there not enough scientist/resources/time to work on severale approaches to aging at the same time?
1c
Failure to speak up might be seen to suggest that there is no acceptable proof for why SENSE will not work. If scientist genuinly believs that SENSE is pseudoscience, what is the reason for the relativ lack of detailed criticism?
2.
A problem with the SENSE plan is that it requires a scientist (or scientist) with expertise in many areas. What if criticism was limited to only the area the scientist had expertise in? Wouldn't it still work to demonstrate the fallacy of SENSE even if you just took it apart one piece at a time, and overall, simply result in a much more thourough analyzes of the SENSE project and age related research in general?
2a
Is this not possible because de Grey has formed his solution for the Seven Deadly Things by synthesising several disparate branches of science?
2a(2)
If so can't each point further be broken up into several sub points and let scientist with the apropriate expertise tackle each of these sub points, if one or several subpoints of a main point is showed to be flawed, then won't that mean that that particular main point is flawed as well?
3.
The only one more to blame for the Soviet agriculture crisis than Lysenko is Stalin for crushing opposition and allowing Lysenko's work to go ahead. If de Grey is in fact Lysenko as some scientists have claimed and they dont take a decisive stance won't they be playing the role of Stalin in this context, by both removing opposition (themselves) and giving de Grey added credibility by way of not making their criticism sufficiently thorough (i.e. a "I take your silence to mean you agree" sort of thing)?
3a
There dosen't have to be a definit answear for or against SENSE for scientist to tackle the technical details. de Grey admit to some doubt about some of his claims (time frame) for his project but if there is more doubt surrounding it than he is letting on, which is what scientist seem to be claiming, then the scientific community needs to inform the pulic of that.
3b
de Grey is getting more public attention with every year that passes.
3b(2)
If there is doubt, public enthusiasm for this project must be tempered, or killed off if the project is completly flawed.
I would welcome any thoughts pertaining to these points. Anything relating to mainstream scientist's stance towards SENSE and de Grey. Basicaly i'm trying to establish why scientist are claiming SENSE as non-sense (pardon the pun), but are only riduculing it and not debunking it.
PS: I apologize for the long post.
