Abstract
The biogerontologist David Sinclair and the bioethicist Leon Kass recently locked horns in a radio debate (http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2004/01/20040106_b_main.asp) on human life extension that was remarkable for one thing: on the key issue, Kass was right and Sinclair wrong. Sinclair suggested, as have other experts, including his mentor Lenny Guarente and the National Institute on Aging advisory council member Elizabeth Blackburn, that Kass and other bioconservatives are creating a false alarm about life extension, because only a modest (say, 30%) increase in human life span is achievable by biomedical intervention, whereas Kass's apprehensions concern extreme or indefinite life extension. Kass retorted that science isn't like that: modest success tends to place the bit between our teeth and can often result in advances far exceeding our expectations.expectations.
Highlights
Kass retorted that science isn’t like that: modest success tends to place the bit between our teeth and can often result in advances far exceeding our expectations
Coping with Methuselah consists of seven essays, mostly on the economics of life extension and including one essay surveying the biology of aging and one on the ethics of life extension
Drugs that elicit the gene expression changes that result from caloric restriction might, these workers assert, extend human life span by something approaching the same proportion as seen in rodents—20% is often predicted—without impacting quality of life, and even when administered starting in middle age
Summary
Kass retorted that science isn’t like that: modest success tends to place the bit between our teeth and can often result in advances far exceeding our expectations. Drugs that elicit the gene expression changes that result from caloric restriction might, these workers assert, extend human life span by something approaching the same proportion as seen in rodents—20% is often predicted—without impacting quality of life, and even when administered starting in middle age.
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