X-Message-Number: 24321
From: 
Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2004 10:30:12 EDT
Subject: Hayflick

If the quotation below is complete and accurate, it appears that  Leonard 
Hayflick is suffering from senile dementia.
 
1. A categorical statement that it is impossible to slow, stop, or reverse  
human aging. (This is a claim of ominscience.)
 
2. >Most of the resources available
>under the rubric "aging  research" are not used for that purpose at all,
>thus making the  likelihood of intervention in the process even more
>remote.
 
Here he contradicts himself by implying that intervention is only remote,  
not impossible.
 
3. >why is the study of aging virtually neglected?
 
Neglected? The literature is voluminous and growing rapidly. And from his  
point of view, why should it matter, if it is hopeless anyway?
 
4. >When it becomes possible to slow, stop, or
>reverse the aging  process in the simpler molecules that compose inanimate
>objects, such as  machines, then that prospect may become tenable for the
>complex molecules  that compose life forms.
 
This is the capper, and it's a howler. He implies that it will never become  
possible to slow, stop, or reverse aging in humans or any other animals,  
because we can't even do it for simple inanimate objects.
 
First of all, we can and frequently do use many methods to slow  

deterioration of inanimate objects, e.g. by galvanizing iron. We also frequently
reverse 
"aging" of machines by a process known as "repair."
 
Beyond that, animals are dynamic systems with self-modifying programs,  which 
most inanimate systems are not, and even in nature there is lots of  activity 
in self-repair. When you cut yourself, your skin heals  itself. Some animals 
can regenerate lost limbs. And we are not limited by  what nature has already 
accomplished.
 
Hayflick needs a guide dog; otherwise he is likely to wander into  traffic.
 
Robert Ettinger

J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2004 Jun;59(6):B573-8.
Aging:  the reality: "anti-aging" is an oxymoron.
Hayflick L.
No  intervention will slow, stop, or reverse the aging process in humans.
Whether  anti-aging medicine is, or is not, a legitimate science is
completely  dependent upon the definition of key terms that define the
finitude of life:  longevity determination, aging, and age-associated
diseases. Only  intervention in the latter by humans has been shown to
affect life  expectancy. When it becomes possible to slow, stop, or
reverse the aging  process in the simpler molecules that compose inanimate
objects, such as  machines, then that prospect may become tenable for the
complex molecules  that compose life forms. Most of the resources available
under the rubric  "aging research" are not used for that purpose at all,
thus making the  likelihood of intervention in the process even more
remote. If age changes  are the greatest risk factor for age-associated
diseases (an almost universal  belief), then why is the study of aging
virtually  neglected?






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