Aubrey De Grey

[etcetcetc00]

Are his ideas taken seriously in the Biology field? What is the concensus in the scientific community regarding SENS?

[Mr Skeptic]

I think largely that it would be really cool if we could solve aging within our lifetimes. Not sure it will happen so soon though, nor that it would necessarily be a good idea.

[MM6]

His seven types of aging are nothing brilliant on his mark. The science is sound. Others have elucidated the mechanisms and relation to cell damage and senescence. From what I know of him, his usefulness is in directing the attention of the scientific community and public at large to the science of aging and how we may use technology and policy to address it.

[shagbark]

No, there is no consensus. A consensus at this point would not be informative. Because of the emotional/religious nature of the subject, and because the technology to implement SENS is far away, people's positions on SENS reflect their personal values more than their scientific judgement.

 

I observe that:

• I don't expect SENS to be a complete solution. It doesn't account for nuclear pore degradation, or for some bizarre diseases of people over the age of 100; it doesn't address what happens to our identity as we replace neurons. We'll come up with better solutions as we get closer.
  
• The overall engineering approach/attitude is a good one; and if we had spent the money on SENS research that we spent on bailing out the economy ($10 trillion, according to George Soros; that's equivalent to 2,000 years of US cancer research funding), it would be more than enough to cure aging shortly.