X-Message-Number: 23665
Subject: Re: Correction Waranted in #23607
From: Aubrey de Grey <>
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 12:51:32 +0000

Kitty Antonik Wakfer wrote:

> Aubrey is once again distorting my statements and intentions - and I
> can only conclude now that he is doing so purposely.

I will not rise to this; I will only point out that your latest posting
is remarkably at variance with your previous one, in which you accepted
that it is indeed entirely appropriate for my FlyBase work to be called
"research", and thus for me to be called a computer scientist or a post-
doctoral research fellow.

> It is not so much among biogerontologists and other supporting
> scientists that I consider the misleading/false/incomplete education
> and employment information regarding Aubrey de Grey to be a real
> concern.

Indeed.  As has already been established, we agree that they have more
representative information (to wit, my publications).

> Instead, my concern is for the vast majority of less scientifically
> knowledgeable people ... It is those people who have no other recourse
> but to make evaluations and decisions largely based on the number and
> level of degrees after someone's name, where the person is employed,
> and/or someone else's opinion of the person.

And on my publication record (number of entries in PubMed, for example,
which can be determined without having the expertise to understand my
work).  But I've said that already....

> Moreover, using shortcuts ("professor" vs "computer associate"
> ?shorter?) is totally unnecessary

Rep. Downing didn't seem to think so.  Here's a straight question for
you, which might bear a straight answer: Do you think that the other
representatives' impression of my standing within mainstream gerontology
was made more accurate or less accurate by their being told that I am
a research associate and not a professor, and being told nothing else?
Your oversight of the fact that the truth was used to mislead the House
is surprising.

> Those truly knowledgeable about the contents of Aubrey's scientific
> contributions in biogerontology likely care little that this was not
> done as part of his employment at Cambridge University.

My point entirely.  Here's a reply to your main outstanding criticism of
me, viz. that nowhere on my website is it stated that I am not paid by
the University of Cambridge to do biogerontology research.  The reason
it is not stated is that its relevance to the true quality of my work
as assessed by my peers is nil (as you acknowledged above) whereas the
impression given to those who do not understand the way that scientific
work is evaluated within the community would be that this means my work
is worthless.  This might be averted by a very thorough explanation, on
my site, of how science is evaluated, but that would largely fail since
people would not read it.  I am indeed proud to have risen to my current
standing in the research community without the help of the usual system
of training, but you are being bizarrely oversimplistic if you think
that this can be communicated to most people by changing the text on my
website.  To do as you suggest would be to do as Rep. Downing did to
his colleagues in the House -- no more and no less -- namely, to give
the majority of readers the false impression that my work is of marginal
value in the opinion of my peers.

Further, you accuse me of doing this "so as to ride on the coattails
of Cambridge University."  Here you are short of a couple of relevant
items of information.  The University has a press office that tells
interested parties about experts employed by the University, and it
often tells them about me.  This press office exists to promote the
University by getting it mentioned in the press.  Similarly, every few
years my Department is assessed for the quality of its employees' work
and this assessment is used to determine how much subsidy it gets from
the government in the following period; I am requested to provide my
biogerontology publications for this purpose.  The first time that I
was so asked I specifically queried whether these publications were of
any use, since they are not part of what I'm paid for, and was told
emphatically that that was irrelevant.  Neither the press office nor my
Department undermine their use of my work in this way by the rider that
they didn't actually pay me to do it.  So in both cases the University
is riding on my coat-tails, rather than the other way around.

> This entire exchange has been quite revealing to me

Nonsense.  You know perfectly well from past exchanges on sci.l-e that
your idea of right and wrong is ... different from mine.

Aubrey de Grey

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