On the Psychology of Longevity Advocacy

An interesting post over at In Search of Enlightenment: Firstly, support for legitimate longevity science is hampered by the vast number of products currently being sold as "anti-aging" therapies without any science to substantiate their claims. See here, for example. And thus one has to be very careful when convincing people that (1) aging is something that ought to be retarded (as it increases our risks of morbidity and mortality); and yet at the same time convince them that (2) we might actually be able to slow human aging and yet (3) none of the current products being sold on the market have been demonstrated to do this (indeed, they might be harmful). The latter point is emphasized, for example, in this excellent piece in the Scientific American by Jay Olshansky, Leonard Hayflick and Bruce A. Carnes. Now if one is pressing (as indeed I am) (1) and (2), it is of course understandable that people will be want to do something about aging (and thus be tempted to violate (3)). But when asked "So what can I do to slow aging?" my response is "(a) support increasing the amount of public funding we invest in the biology of aging...