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by sinenomine
1811 days ago
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While I disagree about banning this research, I totally agree with the main point about this paper: it amounts to fitting several parametric curves to historical population lifespan data for several species. This class of models is a simple extrapolation of historical aggregate lifespan time-series, and thus cannot model non-trivial pharmacological and genetic manipulations even in principle, unless these are a part of a large smooth sub-trend that has already begun. One wouldn't be able to predict that some random flavonoid molecule extends lifespan of lab mice by 10-15%[1], and if we took the [overstated] paper's title claim uncritically, this research wouldn't happen. And yet it happened, and more than a dozen clinical trials in humans are underway. 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6197652/ |
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For context to other readers, I had the following phrasing at the end of my comment: "This research is extremely damaging and should not be allowed". I removed it shortly after posting before I had seen sinenomine's comment, since, ultimately, I'm not in favor of censoring research (as along as limitations are clearly stated). My original comment was mostly a knee-jerk reaction knowing the uphill battle that life-extension research faces in the public discourse.