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How to realise SENS as soon as possible
如何尽可能快地认识SENS
This is one of my five FAQ ("Frequently-Asked
Questions") pages: it covers criticisms of how I'm going about making
SENS a reality. The other FAQ pages respond to: 这是我"常被问"（FAQ）五网页之一：它涵盖了我正在着手使SENS成为现实的批评性意见。"常被问"（FAQ）其他网页是： - general challenges to the "credibility" of SENS, -questions
about how long people of what current age may live, -concerns
that defeating aging is a bad idea or a low priority, and -关注打败老化是一个坏主意或一个低度优先，和 -queries
about how one can help the SENS effort. -询问关于人们怎样能帮助SENS的努力 Antioxidants/meditation/hormones
will do it won't they? Why all this complicated stuff? -抗氧化剂、静坐默想、激素不起作用？为什么这些东西这么复杂？ -你为什么提出时间尺度这一可能是毫无根据的乐观问题 Why are
you so fixated on mice? -为什么你那么关注小鼠？ -为什么你既启动高寿鼠奖（Methuselah Mouse Prize）、又启动有靶标研究（IBG）？ -较少与权力人物对抗你会更好地前进 -既得利益者（政府、制药、正统教徒，等）将阻止你 -即使再多的实验室进展也不会有帮助：人们并不真的担心老化 -即使生物老年学家相信能够，但人们不信 Antioxidants/meditation/hormones
will do it won't they? Why all this complicated stuff? 抗氧化剂、静坐默想、激素不起作用？为什么这些东西这么复杂？ No,
antioxidants/meditation/hormones won't do it. Since such approaches are
already available and money can be made from selling them, there is of course
a fair degree of downplaying of the limitations of existing products in the
available literature on them, most of which literature is generated by those
who are selling the products. 不，抗氧化剂、静坐默想、激素不起作用。既然这样的方法是现成的，又能出售赚钱，那么，当然就有对现成产品的夸大其词的文章，大部分文章出自那些产品销售人之手。 Modest health benefits may indeed
result from some of these products, and that's fine -- but neither they nor
any foreseeable improved versions of them have any chance, on current
evidence, of giving us more than a few years extra healthy or total lifespan
over what we will get just by living and eating sensibly. 这些产品中有一些可能确实对健康有些好处，这很不错—但从目前的证据看，现成产品或这些产品的改进型，它们都不可能给正常过活的我们添加若干年的健康或总寿命。 Looking at this question from the
opposite angle, however, we can see that the pharmaceutical industry has
succeeded in educating the public about the mechanisms of aging that are
alleged to be slowed down by antioxidants and such like, and it's a fair bet
that many people are inclined to buy these products because they understand a
bit about how they're supposed to work, whereas if it were entirely a matter
of faith they might not buy them. This makes it all the more important to spread the word about
how aging can genuinely be postponed and treated by foreseeable therapies. 然而，从相反角度来看这个问题，我们可以看到，关于老化机制，制药工业成功地教育公众：声称老化能为抗氧化剂之类所延缓，于是赌博赢了，很多人倾向于购买这些产品，因为他们了解了一些此类产品好像能起作用，然而，如果完全诚实告诉他们，他们可能就不会买了。这使得宣传（spread the word）老化可以真实地被可预知的疗法（foreseeable therapies）所延缓和治疗，变得最重要不过了。 Why do you engender possibly unwarranted optimism about timescales? 你为什么提出时间尺度这一可能是毫无根据的乐观问题 All biogerontologists are asked one
question more than any other by non-biologists: 所有生物老年学家都更多地被非生物学家问一个问题： How
soon do you think we'll start to see 您认为多久我们能看到 真正的寿命扩展治疗？ Most of my
colleagues absolutely refuse to answer this question, because they feel that
no answer can be scientifically defended and hence that to provide an answer
is to misuse their exalted status as scientists. 我的大部分同事绝对谢绝回答这一问题，因为他们感到没有答案在科学上是能够过关的，因此提供答案有失作为科学家的高贵身份。 I agree with that stance in all
areas of science that are not medically relevant, but not in medical areas: I
feel that those with the best information have a duty to state their
best-guess timeframe, because that information determines people's life
choices, whether or not the public's assessment of the reliability of what
experts tell them is accurate. Thus, though I know I can't defend my chosen
numbers (except the first one) robustly, I don't regard that as justifying
silence. 我同意与医学无关的所有科学领域的那种姿态，但不包括医学领域：我认为，掌握最好信息的那些人，有责任说出他们最佳推算的时间框架，因为信息决定人们的生命选择权，不管公众对专家所告诉的可靠性评估是否准确。这样，虽然我知道我不能哪怕是吃力地通过我所选择数字的答辩（除了第一个数字），但我不把这看作应当沉默的正当理由。 There's also
the fact that providing concrete timeframe estimates may help to undermine
people's apathy. Most people seem to feel that, well, we all die some time,
so is there all that much point in putting all that effort into buying
ourselves another few years, or even another few decades? 也有这样的实事：提供具体的时间框架评估，可能有助于消除人们的冷漠。大多数人似乎都感到，我们都会死于某一时间，那么能否竭尽全力为自己买几年或甚至几十年？ This is, I'm
sure, the main reason why most people in the developed world are so
inattentive to their health, spending no time or money on exercise, fruit and
vegetables, etc. -- it just doesn't seem like fun, and if one's life is a bit
shorter as a result, well, that's a price worth paying. 我相信，这就是主要理由：为什么发达国家中的大多数人疏忽他们的健康：舍不得花时间、花钱去锻炼、吃水果和蔬菜等—这并非玩笑，如果一个人的生命因之短了一点，那是值得的代价。 That's a big
reason why I tend to be quite outspoken about what I consider the likely rate
of progress in combating aging in the coming decades and the consequent
impact of how long people will live -- and live healthily, let's not forget
that. Once people realise the sheer scale of what they could gain if they
just hang in there until these therapies arrive, I reason, maybe they'll
start to see that a bit of sacrifice now is worth it after all. 这就是我的充分理由：为什么我要直言不讳地说，在未来几十年与老化战斗进展的可能的速度，以及随后的、人们将活多长的冲击—活得健康，让我们不忘这一点。一旦人们认识到他们可以获得的寿限，如果他们等待着直到这些疗法到来，那么我猜，他们可能会了解到，现在牺牲一点终究是值得的。 Why are you so fixated on mice? 为什么你那么关注小鼠？ 很简单—它们具有四个特征，这些特征合在一起，使得它们成为这样的一个物种，在这个物种中将最快地达到寿命的扩展成功（足够戏剧性地使公众信服：人类衰老是可延缓的）。这些特征是：(a) 它们很便宜，长期以来是生物学家所发展的、为改变基因等的冷酷处理的负荷动物，这样的处理不存在于大多数动物中；(b)它们有毛有皮，比起果蝇等，人们更认同它们；(c)它们身体足够大，能接受外科手术和骨髓移植等，这在果蝇和线虫是办不到的；(d)它们都不那么长寿，所以候选抗老化干预的功效，可以很快地被确定。 One class of animals that also
seems an attractive proposition is cats and dogs. These are even better than
mice in terms of (b) and (c) above, they're not all that much worse in terms
of (d), and there is a fifth advantage, namely people's emotional attachment
to them. 有一类动物，似乎也是有吸引力的议题，那就是猫和狗。按上述的(b)和(c)，它们甚至比小鼠更好，按(d)比小鼠长寿，还有第五个好处：它们为人们感情之所系。 This has paid off somewhat in one important area,
somatic cell nuclear transfer or cloning: John Sperling, the billionaire who
founded the University of Phoenix, started and funded a company, Genetic Savings and
Clone to clone dogs and cats, and he did this largely to clone his own dog,
Missiplicity. Missy died a few years ago now but they have plenty of her
cells and dog cloning may be only a year or so away. (Cats turned out to be
easier, and GSC are now cloning them for profit at an increasing rate.) GSC
are not just riding on the coattails of science -- they were the first to
clone cats and they seem set to be first with dogs too. 这一点在一个重要领域已取得一些成功，这个领域就是体细胞核移植（或称为克隆）：创办Phoenix大学的亿万富翁John Sperling开创并投资了一家公司，称为“遗传储蓄与克隆（GSC）”，进行克隆狗和猫，他这样做主要是为了克隆他自己的狗Missiplicity。Missy死于几年前，但他们有她的大量细胞，狗的克隆可能只是一两年的事。（猫的克隆比较容易，GSC现在正在加速克隆猫以获利。）GSC没有吃科学老本，他们在克隆猫是第一家，他们似乎力争也成为克隆狗的第一家。 But the current problem for
leveraging this motivation in terms of the SENS therapies is that those
therapies are a decade away even in mice, and not many pet owners think about
their pets' aging until a lot closer to the pet's death than that. This may
not be a showstopper, though, and I remain open to suggestions in this area. 但是，按SENS疗法，当前影响这一推动力的问题是，那些疗法即使在小鼠也是十年以后的事情，而且，直到宠物快死了，很多宠物主人才想到他们宠物的老化问题。虽然这可能不是很精彩，但我仍然敞开这一领域，让大家都来提建议。 Why do you promote both the Methuselah
Mouse Prize and targeted research (the IBG)? 为什么你既启动高寿鼠奖（Methuselah Mouse Prize）、又启动靶标研究（IBG）？ 本项奖励策略和"曼哈顿计划"策略是两码事，难怪有些人似乎会奇怪我两者都支持。（译注："曼哈顿计划"是第二次世界大战中美国原子弹研究计划。） But it's easy really. The real reason
the Manhattan Project was successful was nothing to do with the urgency of
the job: it was because no fundamental conceptual or technical breakthrough
was needed. 但它其实很容易理解。曼哈顿计划成功的真正理由，是该计划没有该项工作的紧迫性：因为不需要基本概念上的或技术上的突破。 US
physicists in 1940 were every bit as confident that an atomic bomb could be
built, and of the general principles of how to do it, as they are now
concerning nuclear fusion. 1940年美国的物理学家完全相信原子弹能够制造，也有制造它的总原理，如同他们现在关注核融合一样。 All that was missing was the
will. Conversely, the War On Cancer was a blatant case of a few influential
scientists talking up their work and ideas and bending the ear of the top
politicians of the day with no scientific basis worthy of the name. 所缺乏的是意志。相反地，抗癌战争是一些有影响科学家的热门话题，他们谈论他们的工作和想法，屈尊今日高层政治家的耳朵（他们没有与他们声望相符的科学基础）。 Prizes are the best way to
bring money and effort to bear on a problem, IF it's very unclear how
to solve it and therefore fundamental conceptual advances are needed. 如果不知道如何解决一个问题、因而需要基本概念进展，那么奖励是把金钱和努力用于解决一个问题的最好方法。 The only other time they make a
big difference, I think, is when there is a lot of glamour involved -- that
brings philanthropic money in. In this sense the X Prize is the exception, a
case of the latter category. Really the X Prize effort was run more as a
couple of Manhattan Projects than as a Longitude/Orteig/etc prize -- the
experts had the knowledge, they just had insufficient funds until Paul Allen
and other billionaires were attracted in. 我想，它们唯一的不同是当有大量魅力被牵涉到的时侯—就注入慈善金钱。在这个意义上，X奖金是例外，是后一个范畴的一个案例。确实，X奖金努力，运转得更像两个曼哈顿计划，而不像Longitude精密时钟奖、Orteig大西洋横渡奖，等—专家有知识，在Paul Allen和其他亿万富翁被吸引进来前，他们仅仅是经费不足而已。 The above sums up why I favour
the two-pronged approach of getting as much money into the MMP as possible
ASAP but also getting an institute going ASAP. Put simply: I don't know
whether the development of rejuvenation therapies good enough to get us to
escape velocity is a project like the atomic bomb and space tourism or
whether it's more like the chronometer. 上述简述了为什么我喜爱两个分支的途径：把尽可能多的钱尽可能快地注入高寿鼠奖，而又使一个研究所尽可能快地运转。简单地说，我不知道能使我们达到逃逸速度的返老还童疗法的发展，是像原子弹计划和空间旅行计划，或是更像精密时钟计划。 The degree of detail in the
SENS strands as they stand today makes me feel that it's probably more like
the atomic bomb, but I could be wrong. I'm FAIRLY sure that if it's like the
chronometer then the quickest way to find that out is to treat it like the
atomic bomb and fail, because the ways in which such mice die will unmask the
things I haven't thought of. But that takes time, and it's POSSIBLE that by
then people striking out on their own in an attempt to win the prize will
cure those aspects of aging without even having necessarily
unmasked/characterised them. 现在这个样子的SENS组成的详细程度，使我感到它可能更像原子弹，但我可能是错的。我确信，如果它像精密时钟，那么发现这个精密时钟的最快方法是对待它像对待原子弹而又失败，因为此种小鼠死亡方式将揭示我所没有想到的事情。但这需要时间，可能到时力争赢得奖金的人们将治愈老化的那些方面而又没有必要揭示或描述它们。 You'd get further with those in power by being less
confrontational 较少与权力人物对抗你会更好 My main problem with this sort of advice is just that the
softly-softly approach has been a catastrophic failure for gerontology for 50
years. How long does a failed strategy have to fail before we should abandon
it? I just don't foresee policy-makers channelling funds into life extension
behind the public's back -- the public must lead them. (How to convince the
public is another matter, addressed below). 我受到此类忠告的主要问题仅仅是：谨慎途经对于老年学家曾经是50年的灾难性失败。在一个失败的策略被放弃前它必须失败多长时间？我看不到制定政策的人会背着公众把基金用于生命扩展—公众必须引导他们。[怎样使公众信服是另一码事，点击以下（below）] An additional problem with
trying to say things about life extension that one thinks people want to
hear, rather than telling it like it is, is that in large part it comes down
to advocating modest life extension (in terms of both feasibility and
desirability) but playing down the feasibility of extreme life extension so
that the more controversial desirability of extreme life extension is
sidestepped. 尝试说些生命扩展（有人认为人们要的是只听不说）的一个额外问题是，大大地降到提倡适度生命扩展（按可行和想望），降低极度生命扩展的可行性，以回避极度生命扩展的有争议的想望性。 This fails because it falls
foul of the inequality concern. If the choice on offer is between leaving aging as it is
and adding a couple of decades to life, it's very hard to claim that the
money spent on achieving those few decades would not be better spent on
increasing the life expectancy of those sectors of global society whose
present life expectancy is much lower than it would be if aging were their
only problem. Only if one considers the prospect of indefinitely (or at least
very greatly) increased lifespans does that argument against life extension
research lose its force. 这不行，因为它犯了不平等关怀（inequality
concern）。如果提供的选择是处在照老样子老化和增寿一二十年之间，那就很难说花钱增寿这些年是花在增加环球社会那些地区的生命期望值，因为在这些地区，如果老化是唯一问题，那么现在的生命期望值大大低于应有值。只有一个人考虑到能够无限地（至少大大地）增加寿命的前景时，反对生命扩展研究的争议才会失去力量。 Vested interests
(government/pharma/fundamentalists/...) will stop you 既得利益者（政府、制药、正统教徒，等）将阻止你 政府最终有一个最高目标：再当选。这意味着，他们只能以两种方式操纵公众：不把信息告诉公众，或者制造某事与公众意见不符而说成更为重要。在本案例中，这两种选项都没有。此外请记住，我们正在谈论的是搁置治愈政府中每个人都会遭受的事情，那么无论什么政治风险和不确定性，通常的规则可能都不完全适用。 Big pharma has often been cited to me as an enemy of
SENS because it makes its money from keeping people alive but frail, so that
they have to carry on buying the products. But that's not a problem for SENS,
because even though people will be restored to youthful health, they will
still have to obtain the very intricate and laborious procedures discussed on
my science pages -- and they'll have to do quite a few of these things,
maybe all of them, periodically forever, probably at least every decade. So
big pharma will want to be involved, because effective life extension
medicine satisfies all their requirements for a very attractive product. 大制药公司常常作为SENS的敌人引荐给我，因为他们赚钱靠的是使人们活着而又虚弱，这样，人们只好继续买那些产品。但是，这不是SENS的一个问题，因为即使人们恢复到年轻的健康，他们也不得不采用非常复杂而费力的程序[讨论在我的科学网页（science pages）] –他们不得不做很多事情，可能他们全都必须周期性地、永远地、可能至少每十年就要做这些事情。所以，大制药公司将会希望介入，因为有效的生命扩展医药满足了他们对于一种非常有吸引力产品的所有需求条件。 Religious people aren't against
curing aging because of their religion -- remember that all faiths teach that
life is sacred and death should not be hastened, however much better the
afterlife may be than this one. But the devout do have the same mental block
about curing aging as everyone else: they have brainwashed themselves into
believing that aging is really a good thing, because that's the easiest way
to put something so ghastly but yet inevitable (which most people still think
it is, of course) out of one's mind. 宗教人士，出于他们的宗教，并不反对治愈老化，--请记住，所有的信仰都教导，生命是神圣的，不应催促死亡，然而，来世可能比此生好得多。但是，这种虔诚在治愈老化上像其他人一样确实有同样的精神枷锁：他们给自己洗脑，相信老化事实上是好事，因为那是把可怖而不可避免的（当然，大多数人仍然认为是这样）事情驱赶出脑子的最容易的方式。 But non-religious people, when
confronted with the utter lack of defensibility of all the arguments against
curing aging, will often retreat to the position that, OK, they should help the
effort to cure aging as soon as possible, but they don't feel like it, sorry.
Religious people don't do that: when they become convinced that it is their
duty as good Christians or Muslims or whatever to help a given cause, they'll
actually do it. Some of the most energetic people in the life-extension
movement are intensely religious. 但是，非宗教界的人们，当面临所有的反对治愈老化的争议完全过不了关时，他们常常会退回到他们应当努力尽快治愈老化的位置，这很好，但是，他们感到不是滋味，这很遗憾。宗教界的人们不会这样：当他们确信作为基督徒或穆斯林或其他教徒有义务帮助一个特定的事业时，他们会很实际地做它。在生命扩展运动中最积极的人们是热忱信奉宗教的人。 No amount of lab progress will
help: people don't really care about aging 即使再多的实验室进展也不会有帮助：人们并不真的担心老化 这基本上对我是一个挑战：提供人们确实想要活得更长久的证据（只要额外的寿命是健康的）。有大量这样的证据—它称为抗老化产业。如果您问人们这样的问题：是否他们喜欢健康地活得长久得多，他们都变得严肃而心情矛盾起来，并开始转向社会和经济后果—但行动胜于言辞。 Also, it's important to remember
that the correct question in deciding whether this research should be
expedited is not whether most people want to live longer but whether most
people feel that people should have the choice to live longer if they want
to. 再者，重要的是要记住，在决定是否应当加快这项研究时的正确问题，不是大多数人是否想要活得更长，而是大多数人是否感到人们应当有活得更长的选择（如果他们想要的话）。 Even when
biogerontologists are convinced it's possible, people won't be 即使生物老年学家相信能够，但人们不信
确实如此，我的策略依赖于科学舆论导向（根据什么是可能的，什么是不可能的）的、社会信赖地跟随的信任。有一些可被视为反例的例子：英国遗传修饰的作物和美国的干细胞研究，这是使人突然想起的两例。但是，等着瞧吧！-- 密切注视这两个例子吧。 Genetically modified crops are
thought by most scientists to be unlikely to be dangerous to the ecology, but
most scientists certainly do not think that they have a zero chance of
being dangerous, so the question for the public is not whether to believe
scientific consensus but how to weigh the risk against the benefit -- and of
course the magnitude of that benefit is a matter of legitimate debate. 大多数科学家认为遗传修饰的作物对生态学不可能有危险，但是，大多数科学家肯定不认为它们有零危险机会，所以对于公众来说，问题不是是否相信科学舆论，而是怎样衡量风险与利益—当然，利益的大小是一个合理争论的问题。 As for stem cell research, the
problem is again not one of whether these therapies are possible or whether
they would be therapeutic, but of whether they are ethical. I'm not saying
that won't also happen with aging -- but look what's happening with stem cell
research: it's not proceeding as fast as it might in the US, but it's still
proceeding pretty fast, and faster elsewhere, and that's mainly due to the
support of large swathes of society, enabled and encouraged by scientific
consensus in this field. 至于干细胞研究，问题也不是这些疗法能与否的问题，或它们能否治病的问题，而是是否符合伦理的问题。我不是在说，这种情形不会发生于老化—但是瞧瞧什么发生于干细胞研究：在美国，它进展得不如它本该进展得那么快，但是，它仍然进展得很快，在其他地方进展得更快，这主要是由于社会大伙的支持，而这种支持是受到该领域科学舆论的激励的。 |
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Problems or questions regarding this site
should be directed to Dr. de Grey
有关本网站的问题和询问一律Dr. de Grey由主持。