Hang on, folks ... I think we may have had a bit of a knee-jerk here, in response in part to the framing by BigThink (especially that obnoxious headline) rather than by Dawkins' own statements in context:
How do you feel about recent attempts to end aging?
Richard Dawkins: It's easy to see why people might wish to prolong their own lives. It's a rather selfish pursuit unless you recognize and do something about the fact that birth rates are not declining in the world as a whole, and the population is rising rapidly. ... So to prolong human life in an irresponsible, profligate way would be indeed irresponsible unless you at the same time reduced birth rates. If everybody lived for ever, then we'd better stop any new people being born. Otherwise we're going to be hideously overcrowded. And it's a rather presumptuous, arrogant thing to do, some might say, to say, right, well, the present generation are the last ones to reproduce. We'd better all just sit here and enjoy our lives for thousands of years. We're obviously a long way away from that now, but I know there are some people who see that as a kind of ideal, and they certainly need to think seriously about what to do about population size.
While it doesn't look as if Dawkins is exactly going to be a prominent booster of radical life extension, he's clearly not saying "we must all die on schedule, to avoid overpopulation" but "
IF we're going to do this, we're going to have to do something about overpopulation." This is, in fact, an entirely reasonable position; indeed, it's my own and (contra someone's statement earlier in the thread)
Dr. de Grey's. The main difference is that Dawkins seems to lack much interest, whereas it's bloody obvious to me and others that it's a moral imperative to cure the terrible degenerative disease known as biological aging on the most aggressive possible schedule (and you're all donating your $1000/year to SENS Foundation, right?) -- but yes, we'll have to take steps to abrogate or ameliorate any adverse social side-effects, of which this is one very likely example if we don't make proactive moves to address it.
(Yes, contrary to what Dawkins says, most projections currently predict global subreplacement fertility sometime in the next few decades -- but no, that won't be enough to counteract an average lifespan of ~1000 yrs. Nor do Dr. Gavrilov's projections get us off the hook, tho' they make it clear that the situation isn't as immediate or as inescapable a crisis as naysayers assume or assert: even a population
rate increase equivalent to that of the postwar Baby Boom, starting at ~7 bn people and perpetuated indefinitely, would rapidly become disastrous ...).
Edited by Michael, 02 June 2010 - 07:07 PM.
