‘This house wants to defeat aging entirely’: de Grey vs. Blakemore
April 24, 2012
Aubrey de Grey (credit: SENS Foundation)
Oxford University Scientific Society is hosting a debate on Wednesday, April, 25, 2012, addressing whether aging should be a target of decisive medical intervention — raising the possibility of substantial extension of human lifespan.
Dr. Aubrey de Grey will propose the motion, “This house wants to defeat aging entirely“ and Professor Colin Blakemore will be opposing. The debate will be chaired and moderated by Professor Sir Richard Peto.
The debate will begin at 7 pm Oxford time (11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern in the U.S.) in the University of Oxford’s Sheldonian Theater.
A video recording of the debate and questions will be posted on the SENS Foundation YouTube channel as soon as possible after the event.
Aubrey de Grey is Chief Science Officer of SENS Foundation, a biomedical research charity that aims to develop, promote, and ensure widespread access to rejuvenation biotechnologies that address the diseases and disabilities of aging.
SENS Foundation aims to bring aging under comprehensive medical control. Its research agenda consists of the application of regenerative medicine to aging — not merely slowing the aging clock, but resetting it to early adulthood.
Colin Blakemore (credit: Oxford University Scientific Society)
Colin Blakemore is Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences. He is an expert in vision, development of the brain, and neurodegenerative disease. He is active in communication of science and is president and adviser to several charities concerned with brain disorders. Prof. Blakemore was formerly Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council, the UK’s largest public funder of biomedical research.
Sir Richard Peto, moderator (credit: SENS Foundation)
The event will be moderated by Professor Sir Richard Peto, Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology at the University of Oxford, and an expert on the hazards of smoking and benefits of stopping.
Oxford University Scientific Society is a student society that aims to disseminate science research and to promote scientific discussions.
Comments (13)
by Jason
Colin is acting a bit like all the backward old pricks throughout history who said things couldn’t/wouldn’t be done. Mechanical flight, to name just one human accomplishment, has been done quite a lot by now, even after many folks, in the manner of Colin, said it was ridiculous to even imagine the possibility. His pessimism is far more dangerous than Aubrey’s optimism. Aubrey isn’t giving up.
by lvel88
the video is available
by Editor
Thanks, part I and II added to post.
by grettir76
People tend to forget that population increase is mostly happening where you find great poverty and harsh living conditions, the only thing that is keeping the growth up in Europe are immgrants, eventually that will even out.
I watched the videos of this debate and found Colin Blakemore arguement of desirability very weak to say the least, however he does make decent arguement that the feasability of obtaining these kind of treatments are slim in the timeframe of 25 years if at all. Being a fan of aubrey, I have watched a lot of his videos on the net and I dont think he is as naive as colins thinks, he admits that we would need make shortcuts to deliver this to the public, the convential methods inplace today would simply take too long.
by Allanx
If we’re going to make humans immortal, it would be better to endow them with substrate-independent minds, so that they don’t need conventional human bodies or the carbon footprint associated with maintaining those bodies. It would be easier for a race of brains-in-boxes living out their existences in rich virtual worlds to colonize and exploit airless, inhospitable environs, too. No need for agriculture, or clothing, or any of the basic necessities that we take for granted today. Just a steady supply of electricity and spare parts.
by grettir76
Still no video of the debate.
by Editor
SENS has promised to alert us when the video is online and we’ll post a news item on it
by Peter Simmons
Yes he does get around, killing the planet slowly as he does so. With world population currently 7,037,161,611 and climbing rapidly, does it sound like the planet needs any more of us selfish, mega-polluting monkeys? All those ‘seeking’ or wanting human lifespan lengthened or death abolished [ludicrous fantasy] are really coming from the same place as all the other delusionists, or religionistas, they’re scared by death, their little egos can’t handle the idea of not existing. Well tough, you can’t have life without death. To be impressed that the Daily Mail is in favour is idiocy, the Mail is the leasts intellectual, most reactionary right wing rag since the News of the World, whose brain-challenged readership it has doubtless soaked up. Instead of wasting time thinking about a longer life, you should be enjoying, celevrating the life you have. Aubrey looks like atypical fantasist who once would have been sermonising the faithfull. Well I guess he still is!
by Editor
OK, Peter, you go first. LOL.
by DP
Actually, life extention (or at least extending youth) would give us a chance to stabilize the population. To oversimplify the issue we could say that the old generation needs to procreate so that their progeny can support them in the old age.
While I’m not an immortalist, stock slogans such as “you can’t have life without death” are poor substitutes for an actual argument. Significative progress has been made in the last years in life extension, so while I doubt I’ll live to see immortality I’m fairly sure I’ll have a better life expectancy than people born a generation before me.
If scientists in the past had followed the reasoning of preachers of your kind they probaby wouldn’t have bothered developping modern medicine.
by David Chambers
Aubrey mentions on Instapundit that this debate might be a “watershed event”
I think that this blog entry:
http://hanlonblog.dailymail.co.uk/2012/04/its-a-dogs-long-life.html
by Michael Hanlon, the Daily Mail’s chief science reporter similarly marks a significant turning point in the public mood, to which the DM is exquisitely sensitive, particularly bearing in mind the generally reactionary and pessimistic world view of the DM, Hanlon criticises the “bizarre prejudice against anti-ageing research” and deprecates worries about overpopulation, sentiments which come straight from from the SENS playbook. The DM is now the most popular news website in the world (ahead of the NYT), so this shift in sentiment is non-trivial.
Hanlon also lays out a intriguing and plausible scenario describing how life extension will begin to filter into the public realm, later in the century.
It would be amusing if the curmudgeonly old Daily Mail turns out to be more positive about Life Extension than Prof Blakemore !
by Giulio Prisco
I thought Aubrey would give a remote video talk in Belgrade.
by Khannea Suntzu
wow, wednesday Oxford, thursday Belgrade, you do get around Aubrey.