Thanks for taking the time to post; I like seeing people share experiences like this on the Forum as well as on Facebook.
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I’d recommend against titles that use an all-caps “NOT” when the post’s conclusion is highly uncertain; readers are likely to get the wrong impression before they look at the post, or even after they’ve read the post (titles are easy to remember).
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I don’t have any opinion of SENS, but it seems like a strong adjustment from “yes, donate” to “probably don’t donate” would be better off coming from a deeper investigation (e.g. “these two key papers have mistakes X and Y” or even “I surveyed 50 experts and found that 90% of them thought SENS was approaching the issue incorrectly”). Conversations at a conference seem like pretty weak evidence against someone’s scientific work unless they are extremely damning (e.g. “this person faked the data for a major study”) or represent a strong consensus within a community with solid credentials and past achievements.
(I don’t know from this post how many people you spoke with, what their positions are, or how successful they’ve been in their own work on ageing.)
I suspect that even de Grey wouldn’t claim that SENS was at all likely to “solve ageing on its own”, or that his organization is among the first to really study aging (though if he did, that would push me somewhat away from wanting to donate, as a sign of massive overconfidence). Maybe his TED talk proves otherwise, but I’d guess that his true argument is something like “aging research gets less funding and attention than it should, compared to other types of health research” (for a post that makes a similar argument, see Sarah Constantin).
I agree that Sanjay’s claim was pretty strong based on his evidence (this kind of hyperbole is more at home on Facebook), but surveying 50 experts seems extreme. I think hearing the views of 5 key experts would be enough to shift my opinion.
I agree that hearing the views of five key experts would be enough; by “survey”, I literally meant something like a poll or survey with a well-worded question about de Grey’s work that ended in something like a yes-or-no answer (though 50 might still be extreme).
It’s hard to tell from this post how “key” the experts who spoke to the author were, or how seriously they’d studied SENS’ research agenda and past publications (vs. mostly knowing about de Grey’s beliefs through his TED talk and other brief summaries).
Thanks for taking the time to post; I like seeing people share experiences like this on the Forum as well as on Facebook.
--
I’d recommend against titles that use an all-caps “NOT” when the post’s conclusion is highly uncertain; readers are likely to get the wrong impression before they look at the post, or even after they’ve read the post (titles are easy to remember).
--
I don’t have any opinion of SENS, but it seems like a strong adjustment from “yes, donate” to “probably don’t donate” would be better off coming from a deeper investigation (e.g. “these two key papers have mistakes X and Y” or even “I surveyed 50 experts and found that 90% of them thought SENS was approaching the issue incorrectly”). Conversations at a conference seem like pretty weak evidence against someone’s scientific work unless they are extremely damning (e.g. “this person faked the data for a major study”) or represent a strong consensus within a community with solid credentials and past achievements.
(I don’t know from this post how many people you spoke with, what their positions are, or how successful they’ve been in their own work on ageing.)
I suspect that even de Grey wouldn’t claim that SENS was at all likely to “solve ageing on its own”, or that his organization is among the first to really study aging (though if he did, that would push me somewhat away from wanting to donate, as a sign of massive overconfidence). Maybe his TED talk proves otherwise, but I’d guess that his true argument is something like “aging research gets less funding and attention than it should, compared to other types of health research” (for a post that makes a similar argument, see Sarah Constantin).
Seconded on title, enjoyed content but title felt click-baity and misleading, especially given 90% of readers will only read the title.
I agree that Sanjay’s claim was pretty strong based on his evidence (this kind of hyperbole is more at home on Facebook), but surveying 50 experts seems extreme. I think hearing the views of 5 key experts would be enough to shift my opinion.
I agree that hearing the views of five key experts would be enough; by “survey”, I literally meant something like a poll or survey with a well-worded question about de Grey’s work that ended in something like a yes-or-no answer (though 50 might still be extreme).
It’s hard to tell from this post how “key” the experts who spoke to the author were, or how seriously they’d studied SENS’ research agenda and past publications (vs. mostly knowing about de Grey’s beliefs through his TED talk and other brief summaries).