The Problems of Ignorance

Fight Aging!

Do you want to live a longer life in good health? Simple practices can make some difference, such as exercise or calorie restriction. But over the long haul all that really matters is progress in medicine: building new classes of therapy to repair and reverse the known root causes of aging. The sooner these treatments arrive, the more lives will be saved. Find out how to help »

If economic ignorance is the death of cultures, scientific ignorance is probably not too far behind. How do you engineer support for scientific paths to far longer, healthier lives when the average listener is not equipped to judge the merits of your proposal? The very existence of the noisesome "anti-aging" marketplace is an illustration of the consequences - desire and demand without discrimination. More thoughts on this topic and related battlegrounds via PLoS Biology: "Even though the scientific community can feel besieged by this anti-science sentiment most people really haven't made up their mind about this issue and, in fact, really haven't even thought about it ... When Americans are diagnosed with cancer or some other life-threatening disease, 'the vast number of these people go online and learn more science in the next 12 months than a typical undergraduate will ever learn. It is impressive how much people can learn with the proper motivation.'"

Link: http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0040167