Leonard Hayflick is not in Favor of Greatly Extending Healthy Human Life Spans
This is very old news for anyone who participates in the aging research community, but a significant fraction of the leading researchers of recent generations are either not interested in or actively opposed to efforts to extend human life. Leonard Hayflick, for whom the Hayflick limit is named, is in this camp. This is one of the contributing factors in the story of how research and funding institutions spent decades working to suppress any inclination among their members to try to treat aging as a medical condition. It is arguably the case that we could be much further ahead than we are today on the road to human rejuvenation - even given the lesser technological capabilities twenty and thirty years ago, meaningful progress towards, for example, senolytic drugs might have been made in a world in which treating aging was considered seriously by those who steered research strategy.
The potential for undying tyrants or tyrannical bodies is one reason Leonard Hayflick, one of the world's preeminent experts on aging, is against slowing down or eliminating the aging process. He has other reasons, too. "To slow, or even arrest, the aging process in humans is fraught with serious problems in the relationships of humans to each other and to all of our institutions. By allowing antisocial people - tyrants, dictators, mass murderers, and people who cause wars - to have their longevity increased should be undesirable ... I would rather experience the aging process as it occurs, and death when it occurs, in order to avoid allowing the people who I just described to live longer."
Despite his reservations about radical life extension, Hayflick is a big proponent of studying aging at a more fundamental level. "Most studies are either descriptive, studies on longevity determinants, or studies on age-associated diseases. None of this research will reveal information about the fundamental biology of aging. Less than 3 percent of the budget of the National Institute on Aging in the past decade or more has been spent on research on the fundamental biology of aging." He's a bit annoyed, for instance, that about a half of the National Institute on Aging's budget goes toward researching Alzheimer's disease. "The resolution of Alzheimer's disease as a cause of death will add about 19 days onto human life expectancy. I have suggested that the name of the institute be changed to the National Institute on Alzheimer's Disease. Not that I support ending research on Alzheimer's disease, I do not, but the study of Alzheimer's Disease and even its resolution will tell us nothing about the fundamental biology of aging."
Hayflick also has some advice on what we should teach scientists and the public about aging. "That education must include an understanding that the massive amount of research funds spent on studying the leading causes of death will not advance our understanding of the basic biology of aging. It also must include an understanding that the study of longevity determinants (anabolic processes) will not reveal information about the basic biology of aging (catabolic processes). Finally, we need to educate scientists and the public, to support research on the differences between young cells and old cells that make the latter more vulnerable to age-associated diseases."
Link: http://nautil.us/blog/this-famous-aging-researcher-doesnt-want-us-to-live-forever
> ...tyrants, dictators, mass murderers, and people who cause wars...
Um, seriously? You know why these people get away with what they do? Because they use naive 20-year olds to do the dirty work. Raise the percentage of people who learned how to work the system and war becomes harder to do. This effect can be seen in a lot of developed nations today.
How can the same man be so clever as researcher and so stupid and blind as an engineer or just human being?
@ Ariel : Right ? It's so sad and upsetting come from someone of his calibre. Repeating the pro-ageists' mantras without any critical thinking or imagination.
Also this quote in the introduction of the full article is pretty ironic :
"Today, we take it for granted that human cells multiply a finite number of times. They stop at the aptly-named Hayflick Limit, when their telomeres-the protective caps at the ends of our chromosomes-get too short. But at the time, the scientific community deemed Hayflick's discoveries-that normal cells are mortal, that they have memory and an internal counting mechanism, that cancer cells are uniquely immortal-preposterous. It would take nearly a decade of criticism and skepticism before his ideas were accepted as fact."
http://nautil.us/issue/42/fakes/ingenious-leonard-hayflick
So now that Mr. Hayflick has become mainstream, he seems to have fallen into the hard-headed skeptics camp.
Hayflick, "There would be such differences in relationships between people if parents decided to arrest their aging process and the children didn't, and the children ultimately reached the biological age of their parents, you can see all kinds of problems arising..."
Yes you're right Leonard, much better the parents wither and die than become rejuvenated and healthy but have some relationship problems with the kiddies...not! If that's the best argument against rejuvenation he can come up with then there's something severely awry with his logical faculties. Probably best for his credit's sake he just sticks to the science if that's typical of his arguments against anti-aging.
Or probably, he is setting up a strawman argument. For example, northern Africa for rid of the dictators not because they have died of old age. And after all, he is admitting indirectly that Alzheimer's is due to aging.
Of course, longer living generations will show down social evolution but at the same time will society more stable.
lenny hayflick is very limited and usually dosent go outside what he believes which i have found to be a relic amongst a generation of older scientists
It scares me how Hayflick can be so short-sighted. As Cuberat writes in the comments field: longer living generations will make society more stable. It scares me when I see on TV all those young people in Middle East (ME) are screaming Allah. As in this article:
The World Has a Problem: Too Many Young People
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/sunday-review/the-world-has-a-problem-too-many-young-people.html
If we could have 5 generations (people living to 150) as David Sinclair says his research will produce, society will be more stable in every way.
and this:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-too-many-men/
[off topic]
>The World Has a Problem: Too Many Young People
There was a saying that being young is a vice that goes away with age. Being old, on the other hand is going downhill.. and you end up in the ditch.
Middle east is in the midst of the demographic transition. That's probably the last generation in the middle east to have high percentage of young people. Sub-Saharan Africa has probably one more generation, and probably will face a very steep decline. Probably a cliff.
And ironically, the "peak human" will lead to unprecedented economical shifts. It might turn that the rejuvenation treatments will be the only way to save the economy in 20 years :)
Imagine how horrifying it would have been if Hitler had been able to use the cure for aging on himself. He'd . . . still be dead now.
Ironically it is the young/new rulers that usually were starting wars. And the succession battles were the norm a few hundred years ago. It is even more ironic that most of the times a bad dictator is still better than a country left in disarray after his death. And if facing potential life expectancy of a few hundred years even the dictators will have to think of "exit strategies" and how to deal with never dying opponents.
Probably worth noting Hayflick is 90, and is more likely parroting the dogmas that were imprinted on his younger mind, than providing a thoughtful reasoned opinion
Lenny is a good man, but I feel sorry for his generational handicap, and he is smart enough to know he shouldn't dismiss youngsters out of hand
He's 90... maybe he's just selfish and doesn't like the idea that many people he knows will be rejuvenated whilst he'll die. Envy doesn't agree with logic.
One respected scientist isn't onboard. Oh well, nothing to get our knickers in a twist about. Let's get this done anyway. Forward!
I read a Washington Post article yesterday where a 104 yr old Australian Scientist wanted to end his life now, but it was illegal in his country. He was bored with living any longer and was looking for a place to go for assisted suicide. It was his strong opinion that it should be an individuals decision when to go to the other side.
PS: The 104 yr. old Australian scientist I referred to above who wants to die is planning to fly to Switzerland for euthanasia because it is illegal in Australia. He is a botanist and ecologist.
Biotechy,
I don't see the problem with this. It should be legal everywhere as long as you're able to pass a psych test, in my opinion at least. After all, one of the objections (not as common, but I've still seen it raised plenty) is that people will be forced to live longer lives than they want when/if rejuvenation becomes a thing. If it were legal everywhere, you could be in the body of a 25 year old and still have the ability to clock out at the city clinic when you want. Seems like a win-win to me. That, and plenty of other people talk about being bored with life or wanting to 'make space for future people', so it would provide an accessible opportunity to do so.
@Ham You'd see a problem with it if you read the whole piece and had a bit of background information.
He said "I wish I was 20 or 30 years younger" in the same interview verbatim. He was pushed to leave his position as a professor couple of years back because of "old age" but managed to remain in the position after the news stations picked up on it and a bit uproar was raised.
He doesn't want to die because he's bored, he wants to die because he's frail and profiled as too old to function in our society. The first problem isn't amenable currently but the second one is.
Matthias F I doubt that
Cuberat: "Of course, longer living generations will show down social evolution but at the same time will society more stable".
I don't think you can make that the case at all about social evolution and why do you think society being more stable is a good thing
Norse: um since when has too many young people been a problem? A problem by whose standards? By the managerial class at the times who hate that they are losing subscriptions? Who's to say there will be more stability when people have more opportunities to fundamentally modify themselves? I don't think more stability is a good thing anyways btw so enough of that. But what does that say about most people that the only thing they have to offer the world is mindless destruction until they become too enfeebled for that.
Arcayn: "There was a saying that being young is a vice that goes away with age. Being old, on the other hand is going downhill.. and you end up in the ditch." That is a completely stupid quote