[ExI] Halycon Molecular Interview regarding Kurzweil and de Grey

[John Grigg]

Taken from the interview:
*Question*: How do your views on longevity and life extension compare with
those of Aubrey de Grey and Ray Kurzweil?

*Answer*: Parts of SENS urgently should be funded and tested. That being
said, I work on sequencing and not on SENS, because our approach to curing
aging is first to turn biology into an information science- actually getting
to untangling the morass of metabolism that SENS does an end run around. I
believe we can get to a complete mechanistic understanding of human biology
in only a few decades, which is a timeline more like Kurzweil’s. On the
other hand, if SENS were being vigorously pursued today, it might save
millions of lives before the total understanding approach avails us. It is
good to have multiple bets.

As for Kurzweil, maybe this isn’t fair, and I’d like to hear his thoughts on
it, but I’m afraid his books demotivate people who would otherwise
contribute to the cause, maybe by giving the impression to some that the
Singularity is not only coming, but actually inevitable. Eat right,
exercise, take these pills, and don’t worry- those smart hardworking
scientists over there will solve everything for you. In contrast, a great
thing about Aubrey as a leader is that he harangues people to actually get
off their asses and make a contribution.

We might not survive the next twenty years. We may never cure aging. There
is nothing inevitable about our success. Everyone who is talented enough to
make a contribution should be trying to help, on all fronts, by any ethical
means, like it’s life and death- because it is.

And the very most talented ones should send their resumes immediately to
Halcyon.
>>>

Halycon Molecular interview
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/12/interview-of-gene-sequencing-expert.html

John