I don’t really see your reasoning there. Plenty of objective critics of various things end up calling them agenda-driven pseudoscience.
I think Estep’s behavior is typical of an academic who is faced with an outsider making outrageous claims about how much better they’re going to be able to do than the rest of that field. I’ve seen multiple other examples of this, and the academics have usually been right.
I don’t really see your reasoning there. Plenty of objective critics of various things end up calling them agenda-driven pseudoscience.
My point wasn’t that calling something “agenda-driven pseudoscience” is in itself evidence that the critic is biased, but that this is so when there is sufficient independent evidence that the target doesn’t merit that criticism. De Grey has published dozens of papers in respectable scientific journals, is the editor of one such journal himself, has organized successful conferences attended by many field experts, has received praise from leading researchers, etc. I cannot think of many other people with comparable indicators of expertise whose research could be justifiably dismissed in such harsh terms.
(All of this, needless to say, is compatible with de Grey’s estimates being wildly optimistic, as I in fact believe they are.)
For one thing, the authors are talking about the SENS plan for curing aging, not de Grey’s past research; for another, they had $20,000 riding on whether they could successfully argue that the plan was “not even worthy of discussion” or something to that effect, so I think the harsh words are understandable.
I cannot think of many other people with comparable indicators of expertise whose research could be justifiably dismissed in such harsh terms.
For one thing, the authors are talking about the SENS plan for curing aging, not de Grey’s past research;
The two are related, though I agree this limits the relevance of that particular indicator of expertise. (The successful conferences organized by de Grey, by contrast, are explicitly about SENS.)
they had $20,000 riding on whether they could successfully argue that the plan was “not even worthy of discussion” or something to that effect, so I think the harsh words are understandable.
The phrase I quoted was made by Estep in a paper that was unrelated to the Technology Review challenge, so I don’t think this point is relevant. Furthermore, if the financial incentives are operating in the manner you suggest, that would give us reason to distrust, to some degree, the claims made by Estep et al. in their submission to the challenge.
Our disagreement can probably be traced to some deeper epistemological difference between us: I suspect that many of the researchers you have in mind are scientists that I’d also think shouldn’t be dismissed in the manner Estep dismissed de Grey. But I would prefer not to spend my scarce weirdness points discussing publicly my views about these controversial figures.
I don’t really see your reasoning there. Plenty of objective critics of various things end up calling them agenda-driven pseudoscience.
I think Estep’s behavior is typical of an academic who is faced with an outsider making outrageous claims about how much better they’re going to be able to do than the rest of that field. I’ve seen multiple other examples of this, and the academics have usually been right.
My point wasn’t that calling something “agenda-driven pseudoscience” is in itself evidence that the critic is biased, but that this is so when there is sufficient independent evidence that the target doesn’t merit that criticism. De Grey has published dozens of papers in respectable scientific journals, is the editor of one such journal himself, has organized successful conferences attended by many field experts, has received praise from leading researchers, etc. I cannot think of many other people with comparable indicators of expertise whose research could be justifiably dismissed in such harsh terms.
(All of this, needless to say, is compatible with de Grey’s estimates being wildly optimistic, as I in fact believe they are.)
For one thing, the authors are talking about the SENS plan for curing aging, not de Grey’s past research; for another, they had $20,000 riding on whether they could successfully argue that the plan was “not even worthy of discussion” or something to that effect, so I think the harsh words are understandable.
Parapsychologists? Scientific racists? Climate change deniers? Tobacco deniers? Each of these fields has boosters as prominent as de Grey, if not far more (e.g. Daryl Bem, James Watson) and has been called out as “pseudoscience” by fairly objective-seeming critics.
The two are related, though I agree this limits the relevance of that particular indicator of expertise. (The successful conferences organized by de Grey, by contrast, are explicitly about SENS.)
The phrase I quoted was made by Estep in a paper that was unrelated to the Technology Review challenge, so I don’t think this point is relevant. Furthermore, if the financial incentives are operating in the manner you suggest, that would give us reason to distrust, to some degree, the claims made by Estep et al. in their submission to the challenge.
Our disagreement can probably be traced to some deeper epistemological difference between us: I suspect that many of the researchers you have in mind are scientists that I’d also think shouldn’t be dismissed in the manner Estep dismissed de Grey. But I would prefer not to spend my scarce weirdness points discussing publicly my views about these controversial figures.