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173 of 189 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
One-Trick Pony, May 30, 2010
This review is from: Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality (Hardcover)
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I was very disappointed in this book, and here's why: First the pros...Weiner gives a lot of pagetime to Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey. Great name, eh? He is a brilliant and colorful man who is an enthusiastic proponent of the idea that science can, and soon will, enable us to live virtually forever. Aubrey's optimism is refreshing. Whether it is realistic or not I am not qualified to say, as I don't have a background in biology. And with his elongated frame, gaunt countenance, slovenly dress, biblical beard and nonstop beer-swilling he is fun to read about. Another positive is the author's explanation of the basic problem: our cells are constantly mutating and malfunctioning, and as we get older the "mistakes" add up as the body loses the ability to make corrections. So far, so good...but here are the negatives: Perversely, the almost exclusive concentration on Aubrey de Grey makes this more of a colorful "New Yorker" type piece, or mini-biography, than a rigorous exploration of all the work going on in this field. There are snippets of what other people who are doing work in this area think, but these ideas and opinions are not examined or explained in any detail. The book basically comes down to this: Aubrey de Grey thinks that we will come up with a way to clean up the mistakes that occur in our genetic codes, and other people think it's too complicated or it's too soon to tell. But, again, we are not given enough of a rounded picture to come to our own conclusions. There is also a sort of half-hearted attempt to wax philosophical about whether it would be good to be immortal, but this is done in a rather cursory manner. For example, Mr. Weiner makes an assumption that if we lived almost indefinitely, we wouldn't want to have children...therefore, tremendously long lifespans wouldn't cause an overpopulation problem. He doesn't address the fact that we have evolved over millions of years a biological imperative to have children. Why would that suddenly disappear? Other seemingly important, related, issues such as diet (antioxidants), and why some nationalities live longer and have fewer instances of heart disease and cancer are likewise not examined at all or are mentioned in an offhand manner. Aubrey de Grey is a fascinating man and he does warrant a biography. But this book is supposed to be a rigorous examination of the science of immortality and, as such, it should thoroughly cover all the bases. It does not do so, and that's why I can't recommend it.
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60 of 69 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
On the Road to Long Life, June 8, 2010
This review is from: Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality (Hardcover)
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As a biochemist, I once did research on aging. I wanted to know why the several trillion cells in our body deteriorate in much the same way that our automobiles deteriorate with age. The answer was that the complex systems for repair and replacement of cell machinery slowly, and finally rapidly, stop repairing and replacing parts. As a result, the cells die, and so does the living creature, whether human or worm. I suspected that the cause of this might be damage to the many genes controlling the repair and replacement process. Now, it seems likely that something of this sort is the case, and it raises the question of how long we can live if we can get the repair and replacement process started again.
In this excellent and very readable book, Weiner presents a status report of research progress on extending life, and he faces the question of living forever. In his search for answers, he has the aid of Aubrey de Grey of Cambridge University, a scientist who bubbles with ideas. I was fortunate at one time to be in an online discussion group on aging that included Aubrey de Grey. The stimulation he brought was amazing. Now, you can read some of his thinking, as related by Weiner, along with the setting in which it occurred.
Aubrey de Grey suggests that unlimited life is certainly on the way. His arguments are good, and I note that a growing number of researchers have concluded that aging cells wear out much like the parts of our automobiles. We can combat some of this wear by replacing vital organs, but the real feat is to get those defective control genes replaced or working again. Researchers are finding and working on some of the genes. As a result, they have extended, and even doubled, the life spans of creatures in the laboratory. Thus, much longer life is possible. Unlimited life does not violate any physical law, so it is also possible. We simply have to figure out how to do it. I learned long ago of the danger of saying that something is impossible. This was the case with space travel, and this is the case with immortality. Weiner does a masterful job of explaining where we stand on extending life, and the problems we face.
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28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Our eternal struggle, May 31, 2010
This review is from: Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality (Hardcover)
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Humanity's fear of death has yielded many odd things. It has given us expensive cosmetics and odd potions (current fascination with "ionized water" is just the latest in this endless thread). It has given us visions of an afterlife, well-stocked with trout and virgins. But it has also given us the Pyramids and Keats, vaccines and Brahms, sanitation and farming. As Jonathan Weiner's readable book demonstrates, we've been just a few years from a cure--for millennia.
As we've come to learn more about evolution and the processes of life, we have begun to gain some insight into the mechanisms of aging. It is deeply built into the way our biology works. Four billion years of evolution mean that there's a lot to untangle. Weiner takes us into the labs of many biologists and experimentalists, each working on one small key to the puzzle. He examines the bitter debate between the "skin-ins", those who study biology at the molecular level, and the "skin-outs", who study the emergent properties of complete ecosystems. All of this is written in an engaging style that will inform any reader with a modicum of scientific curiosity. Weiner knows his literature as well, often referring to relevant passages in ancient Chinese and Indian poetry or classical Western thought. I really AM going to have to get to Dante some day.
Most scientists are modest in characterizing their own knowledge and the impact it will have on human lifespans. A few more years might be a reasonable expectation. But there are those (as there always have been) who assume that we can achieve virtual immortality with just a few small steps. In Weiner's book, the stand-in for this point of view is a man named Aubrey de Grey.
De Grey is a genuine character, of a type that's somewhat familiar to me. An English software engineer, now in middle age, with an enormous beard and an endless thirst for beer, de Grey directs a society dedicated to immortality. He's an academic type with a lot of brains and very little true accomplishment. He's an autodidact in the field of biology, but without the patience or training to actually test his own ideas. This doesn't not stop him from spewing opinions, occasionally (remember the parable of the blind squirrel finding the nut) unearthing something of interest. Since he is an engineer, he displays the engineer's attitude: just the right line of code or the right-sized bolt and we're done. He's an interesting, if eventually tiresome, antagonist.
Jonathan Weiner has given us a book that's equal part science and philosophy. Our world would be vastly different without the stimulus of personal demise (for a companion reader I'd recommend Death & Sex by Tyler Volk). Perhaps the strongest example of this was given--unwittingly--by Aubrey de Grey. He speculated that once aging was eliminated, then death would come only by accidental cause. We'd be afraid to get in a car or to climb a mountain. With immortality, our fear of death would only increase. What kind of a life is that?
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