Talk:Strategies for engineered negligible senescence

Is this a subtopic of regenerative medicine?

I suggested adding material about this topic to regenerative medicine, you might be interested in discussing it here. Paradoctor (talk) 20:45, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

reverted my own edit after email discussion with AdG

I have been notified that I should not remove text that I added and my change was reverted. My reading of the listed primary literature had led me to understand that the position of Aubrey deGrey had been softened based on the cited evidence, and after receiving an email stating that the paragraph was incorrect, and that I had read the wrong conclusion into the article, and was asked directly by Aubrey deGrey to remove the text which had misattributed his position, which (apparently) has not changed or softened. I don't know why this was reverted to readd text that I think might be incorrect, particularly since I added it in the first place. I don't know what rule of Wikipedia I am not following, as stated on my talk page- making bold edits and removing potentially incorrect or misleading information are the rules I am attempting to follow. MatthewEHarbowy (talk) 00:48, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Since no one owns any article, it does not matter who added the information. Here is what you removed - it looks like a well-sourced paragraph to me and Wikipedia is typically not improved by the removal of good cited material. Blue Rasberry (talk) 10:23, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I added the info based upon my reading of the sourced material, which on second review and additional discussion seems to present an inaccurate view of the situation. I had originally added this summary of the primary literature, and it was unchanged since I had added it. If I summarize primary literature and then decide later the summary is inaccurate, why shouldn't I remove it? I don't claim ownership of the words, but I do take accountability for what I add. If you would like to review the referenced material and provide your own summary of it, please do so. I don't understand why you oppose, in this case, what is effectively me reverting myself, attempting to remove what is potentially a poorly sourced statement. MatthewEHarbowy (talk) 18:48, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

The burden of proof is on me, as the person who added the original material. WP:BURDEN MatthewEHarbowy (talk) 19:01, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Great explanation. I just brought this up because it always looks strange to me when I see someone remove a lot of sourced content without making a note on the talk page. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:08, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

RepleniSENS in turtles

Turtles can live to be about 100 or more. That is because they do not experience cell loss and atrophy. Their organs do not break down as they age.

Anonymous173.57.44.147 (talk) 02:58, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Then why do they die? —Tamfang (talk) 03:09, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

It is partially our fault. Human activity has been causing trouble for them. -Anonymous173.57.44.147 (talk) 19:24, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

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Dr. Kverndokk's comment on this article

Dr. Kverndokk has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

As an economist, this subject was new to me, and I find the text a little bit hard to follow as it contains a lot of medical expressions.

There must be something wrong with the maths in the following text copied from "Social and economic implications":

"...the number of Americans stricken with AD will rise from 4 million today to as many as 16 million by midcentury. This means that more people in the United States will have AD by 2050 than the entire current population of the Netherlands. Globally, AD prevalence is expected to rise to 45 million by 2050, with three of every four patients with AD living in a developing nation."

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

We believe Dr. Kverndokk has expertise on the topic of this article, since he has published relevant scholarly research:

• Reference : Gjerde, Jon & Grepperud, Sverre & Kverndokk, Snorre, 2009. "On adaptation, life-extension possibilities and the demand for health," HERO On line Working Paper Series 2001:7, Oslo University, Health Economics Research Programme.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 16:03, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Mouse

About the content added:

1. here
2. here
3. here

The source is not MEDRS and the formatting is invalid - we don't do embedded URLs. It also being added only to the lead and not in the body. Jytdog (talk) 12:49, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

The "fantasy rather than science" sources aren't MEDRS either. But don't worry, I'll not write anymore in this bureaucratic unciclopedia nor link it from anywhere, so you can maintain its uninformative purity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.31.30.144 (talk) 16:30, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Unduly negative

Why is this so poorly weighted? It comes across as if SENS has almost no support, this isn't the case, and even if it was, a Wikipedia article should still be balanced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:7B3E:A700:C46F:8446:F050:4D24 (talk) 19:23, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Please review WP:MEDRS and WP:FALSEBALANCE - David Gerard (talk) 22:32, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

But who decided that SENS is a "minority opinion"?, claims like "SENS agenda is fanciful and the highly complicated biomedical phenomena involved in the aging process contain too many unknowns for SENS to be fully implementable in the foreseeable future" that were made in 2005 are time dependent(even if they were true) and are no longer valid in 2020. Many things have changed and there were some important scientific progress in the field of treating aging. from rejuvenating human cells(https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/03/old-human-cells-rejuvenated-with-stem-cell-technology.html) to reversing Advanced Glycation end Products(AGEs) accumulation in the body(https://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/67/Supplement_1/1229-P SENS helped to fund the study) which are one of the main reasons for skin aging and there is actually a new company that is working to commercialize those AGEs degrading enzymes called "Revel Pharmaceuticals".

The criticism also mentions "specific proposals" of SENS but that also was 15 years ago. The criticism in the article is made up from out dated opinions and is also quite subjective like "increased basic research, rather than the goal-directed approach of SENS, is presently the scientifically appropriate goal.", That claim also got refuted since it is a SENS funded research that actually made the first progress in clearing out the main AGEs cross-links in the body(Glucosepane) which have a major role in skin aging and also aging in general.

The part in the criticism that say that " such therapies, even if developed in the laboratory, would be practically unusable by the general public" is nothing but a personal baseless opinion and doesn't belong in an encyclopedic article if there is no explanation for why he thinks like that.

It also worth to mention that in his criticism Kyriazis said about Glucosepane cross-link cleavage: "there is little clinical information on this product, making it difficult to suggest concrete therapies that can deal with this particular compound" and today due to SENS funded research such therapies are close to be commercialized. It demonstrates how the "criticism" mentioned in the article becomes completely irrelevant after few years of scientific progress.

Big part of this skepticism about rejuvenation(especially today) is just a result of cultural reasons because most people got used to see aging as natural inevitable thing and to see the pursuit of preventing/reversing it as something that belongs to mad people. Even in movies everyone who wants to fight aging is usually a villain like an evil witch. --5.22.135.25 (talk) 00:55, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard Mass Deletions

User:David Gerard Mass reversion of content created by an honest user should not be occuring, even on a page that is under administrative sanctions. If you believe a particular addition uses an inappropriate source please start with discussion on the talk page, then escalate to a citation needed if no one engages, then finally escalate to targeted content deletion if you still do not receive engagement. The goal of Wikipedia is to aggregate content, and mass deletions of content that includes a variety of sources across a variety of sub-topics does not align with Wikipedia's policies. Reversion should be the last step, and it should be targeted at specifically bad material not bulk. Micah71381 (talk) 13:02, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Your latest reversion was in direct violation of the awareness notice concerning fringe topics that had literally just been posted to your talk page. Your understanding of the sourcing requirements of WP:MEDRS - which this article covers - also seem to be in need of refreshing - David Gerard (talk) 17:23, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Call for more eyes posted to Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Strategies_for_Engineered_Negligible_Senescence - David Gerard (talk) 17:25, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Ah, I wasn't familiar with WP:MEDRS, thanks for the link! It does clearly state that "Primary sources should generally not be used for medical content – as such sources often include unreliable or preliminary information, for example early in vitro results which don't hold in later clinical trials." However, it is worth noting that WP:MEDRS does not blacklist primary sources for all cases, and it includes some specific examples where regular WP:RS applies (particularly to primary sources). I still stand by my assertion though that mass reversion is not the solution to the problem, though targeted reversion may be appropriate. Please read over WP:DONTREVERT and WP:REVEXP. Here are some salient bullet points:

* Do not revert a large edit because much of it is bad and you do not have time to rewrite the whole thing.

* Even if you find an article was slightly better before an edit, in an area where opinions could differ, you should not revert that edit

* In the case of a good faith edit, a reversion is appropriate when the reverter believes that the edit makes the article clearly worse and there is no element of the edit that is an improvement.

The key takeaway from those two articles and associated essays is that reverting isn't an appropriate tool when a large edit includes some objectionable content. Reversions are meant for dealing with vandalism and un-salvageable edits. In this case, there are numerous sources cited that may not be primary sources including: MIT Technology Review, PubMed and NextBigFuture. Have you checked each of these sources to see if they are primary sources or secondary sources per WP:MEDRS? Some might be, some might not. Also, while WP:MEDRS disallows primary sources for medical information, it does not disallow primary sources for general information. I see at least a few citations that are being used for general information. This suggests to me that (per WP:DONTREVERT), a full reversion is an inappropriate solution to this problem. I recommend issuing an edit that only cuts out the content that is unsalvageable, and leaves the content that is salvageable. If you aren't sure which content is salvageable per WP:MEDRS, we can go over some of it here prior to making edits.

You appear to be reaching for any excuse to keep bad sources. Can you find good sources instead? - David Gerard (talk) 21:55, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

• My primary interest is in following the Wikipedia ethos that adding/including content is generally preferred over removing/censoring content. If there is a good reason to remove some particular content from Wikipedia then I believe we should do that, but I don't believe that we should be removing large swaths of content because it is more convenient than doing targeted edits (see WP:DONTREVERT). I'm reasonably confident this edit is salvagable, and in an effort to be WP:Inclusionism, I think we should strongly avoid mass reverts like this. Secondarily, there are good sources in the reverted edit, along with some bad ones (per WP:MEDRS), and I'm not arguing to keep the bad ones. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MicahZoltu (talk • contribs) 22:24, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

WP:RS is policy that any material, when challenged, must have good sourcing. WP:MEDRS is a content guideline that is extremely harsh on sources for anything touching even tangentially on medicine, and has very strong consensus. You may consider application of either of these "censoring" - as you put it - but you're going against both policy and consensus there, and probably shouldn't expect others to just go along with keeping bad sources in the article for the sake of it - David Gerard (talk) 22:40, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

• I think this discussion would proceed smoother if you try to avoid straw manning. I have not advocated in this discussion to keep bad sources, outside of my lack of knowledge early on about WP:MEDRS. I have advocated that some of the sources in the edit were good, and your revert removed both the good sources (and content) and the bad sources (and content). I support the removal of the bad sources and content, but I do not support the removal of good sources and content along with it. Micah Zoltu (talk) 22:46, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Well, that's easily enough resolved - there's three editors who removed it (JzG, Roxy the dog, me) and two who wanted it in (an IP and you). This indicates a genuine dispute over the quality of the sourcing. As such, the WP:ONUS (which is policy) is on its advocates to show that this is appropriately sourced material that belongs in the article. So, this is the point for you to show your skill at persuading others - David Gerard (talk) 22:49, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

• To keep it simple: the SENS Meetings section was basically a list of past event dates. The sources were mostly primary sources, which are acceptable according to WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD and WP:MEDRS. It could use a couple minor touchups, but throwing out the entire edit because other parts of the edit were bad goes against the Wikipedia ethos as laid out in the Wikipedia:List_of_policies#Conduct and Wikipedia:List_of_guidelines#Behavioral. I believe there were other quotes worth keeping as well, but we can probably benefit from focusing on one for now since my general argument is WP:DONTREVERT. Micah Zoltu (talk) 23:32, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Why don’t you you a series of much smaller edits, starting with the least controversial. I don’t think you should try to sneak your poor content into the article alongside a potential nugget of good stuff. I will continue to remove any nonsense you add. Find consensus. Roxy, the PROD. . wooF 14:01, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

• I am not the original author of this edit. If the author of the edit has a history of trying to "sneak in nonsense" then I feel like action should be taken to address that user, but under the presumption of WP:GOODFAITH we should assume that isn't the case here (unless there is evidence I'm not aware of) and the author was simply trying to improve Wikipedia and in the process of that included some content that goes against WP:MEDRS. The issue I'm bringing up here isn't that "this edit was good, it should be retained". It is that, "this edit had some good content, we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water". Micah Zoltu (talk) 15:32, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

just stop adding nonsense please. If you think there is worthwhile content, add it, just don’t expect people to separate out the wheat from your chaff for you. We aren’t paid for that. Roxy, the PROD. . wooF 17:18, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

• MicahZoltu, you have 150 edits, a large proportion of which appear to be to a subject where you have a conflict of interest. David edits more articles in an average day than you have in your entire time here. Lecturing him on policy, rather than listening to his explanations of policy, is a terrible idea. Guy (help!) 01:33, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

The "Scientific controversy" section needs to be removed

Claims like "SENS agenda is fanciful and the highly complicated biomedical phenomena involved in the aging process contain too many unknowns for SENS to be fully implementable in the foreseeable future" that were made in 2005 are time dependent(even if they were true) and are no longer valid in 2020. Many things have changed and there were some important scientific progress in the field of treating aging. from rejuvenating human cells(https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/03/old-human-cells-rejuvenated-with-stem-cell-technology.html) to reversing Advanced Glycation end Products(AGEs) accumulation in the body(https://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/67/Supplement_1/1229-P SENS helped to fund the study) which are one of the main reasons for skin aging and there is actually a new company that is working to commercialize those AGEs degrading enzymes called "Revel Pharmaceuticals".

The criticism also mentions "specific proposals" of SENS but that also was 15 years ago. The criticism in the article is made up from out dated opinions and is also quite subjective like "increased basic research, rather than the goal-directed approach of SENS, is presently the scientifically appropriate goal.", That claim also got refuted since it is a SENS funded research that actually made the first progress in clearing out the main AGEs cross-links in the body(Glucosepane) which have a major role in skin aging and also aging in general.

The part in the criticism that say that " such therapies, even if developed in the laboratory, would be practically unusable by the general public" is nothing but a personal baseless opinion and doesn't belong in an encyclopedic article if there is no explanation for why he thinks like that. It also worth to mention that in his criticism Kyriazis said about Glucosepane, the main AGE cross-link in the body: "there is little clinical information on this product, making it difficult to suggest concrete therapies that can deal with this particular compound" and today due to SENS funded research such therapies are close to be commercialized. It demonstrates how the "criticism" mentioned in the article can become completely irrelevant after few years of scientific progress.

Big part of this skepticism about rejuvenation(especially today) is just a result of cultural norms because most people got used to see aging as natural inevitable thing and to see the pursuit of preventing/reversing it as something that belongs to mad people. Even in movies everyone who wants to fight aging is usually a villain like an evil witch.

The "criticism" in the "Scientific controversy" section don't say much other than pointing out that it is difficult to achieve SENS's goals in the "foreseeable future"(which was 15 years ago) and nothing more than that. There are so many kinds of research ongoing on so many things that are even more difficult than SENS's goals yet we don't see this type of criticism, The reason for that is much more cultural than scientific, fighting aging itself is culturally deemed as "fighting nature" and "playing god" and not as something legitimate like fighting something that is seen as a disease by society unlike aging which is "natural". Cultural norms are the main reason behind the "Scientific controversy" section and the "criticism" inside of it. --5.22.135.25 (talk) 03:37, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

If the criticism is out-of-datre, it should be p[ossible to show, with more recent reliabel sources that are compliant with WP:MEDRS, that scientific nopnion has changed and now endorses the SENS program. Even then the criticism should not be removed -- it was made, and published, by experts in t4eh field. But if more recent opnion is of a different tendency, that should be added to th article. However, souring for such an addition should be of high quality. The two sources li8nked above appear to be the kind of initial, primary report strongly disfavored, and in many cases barred, by WP:MEDRS. I urge, editor at 5.22.135.25, that you read or review MEDRS. In addition, to mark such criticism as beign outdated there would need to be far more than two sources, if this has become the mainstream view. Also, there would be new reliable statements specifically endorsing the SENS program, which the above linked sources do not seem to do, they merely report on specific developments, which might support some aspects of SENS, But deciding that such reports do in fact support SENS is the kind of interpretation a Wikipedia editor should not do. We need published reliable secondary sources that explicitly make that connection to include it in the article. See WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 18:56, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

I am 5.22.135.25 and I didn't talked just about the fact that the criticism is outdated, I am saying that the arguments in the "criticism" can't be count as criticism regardless of their source. The main argument in all of that criticism in the article is about how the goals of SENS aren't achievable in the foreseeable future and this is simply not a real criticism against SENS's research and goals. Its like criticizing cancer research that was made many years ago just because it had goals that were found out to be unachievable in the "foreseeable future" of its time. This kind of "criticism" doesn't make sense even if their prediction about the "foreseeable future"(which are nothing more than a calculated guess) was true back then or today.

The studies I provided are just an example for the advancements that was made in the years after the "criticism" was made. I don't need to provide any kind of statement from someone who endorse SENS's goals in the same way nobody need to endorse the goals of an organization that work to find better treatments for cancer.

There is nothing in the "criticism" that should led someone to believe that we shouldn't support the goals of SENS. Much of the "criticism" is nothing but non scientific statements like that the SENS goals are "fantasy rather than science", like what this statement even means? that it is impossible to reverse the biological damage that cause aging as we know it?, you need to prove that something completely brakes the laws of physics in order to deem it "impossible" technologically and this statement is almost completely refuted by current studies including those I provided here.

You can't take any statement made by a scientist(Marios Kyriazis isn't really a scientist but a medical doctor) as a fact or as "scientific opinion" when there is no actual study or known facts to support it. Having some statement being published in a medical journal doesn't make it a fact or something that is supported scientifically. You need some actual study to support the statements when you present them as "scientific opinions" or facts and there is a need to separate those scientific opinions or conclusions from some non scientific statements made as a personal reaction to something even if it is published in some medical journal.

You can add various speculations and "scientific opinions" about when the SENS goals might be achieved(and they need to be relatively updated because 15 years is a lot of time) but the "scientific controversy" section make it look like there is some fundamental problem with SENS's goals and there is no actual "scientific opinion" that support this attitude toward SENS. --ThunderheadX (talk) 22:39, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Your two examples are in vitro research reports, which Wikipedia does not accept as reliable sources for medical topics. David notMD (talk) 01:02, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

David notMD It depends on the context. In this case in vitro study or even completely theoretical research is enough to refute claims like that reversing the damage of aging is "fantasy rather than science". And what kind of research was behind the statements in the "criticism" section? it definitely wasn't an in vivo research. The statements in the "criticism" part of the article have no research behind them and are not even scientific claims that can be validated by any kind of research, they are nothing but non-scientific statements that are presented as "scientific opinion" in the article.--ThunderheadX (talk) 02:31, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

There are also other scientific papers that imply that reversing aging is a possible goal that is being sought by other companies including SENS:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5161440/ "Newly armed with an idea of how humans age, numerous companies and government-funded programmes have sprung up to address human ageing as a problem in and of itself, rather than trying to address the diseases of ageing separately. High profile examples include the (formerly Google) Alphabet-funded ageing research venture, Calico (California Life Sciences Company); the interventions testing program (ITP) run by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), designed to test the longevity-enhancing potential of a variety of different drugs; and Human Longevity Inc., co-founded by J. Craig Venter, which aims to elucidate and treat the (epi)genetic causes of age-related diseases. Furthermore, the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) Research Foundation performs its own research and helps fund the research of other institutes, and focuses on utilising combinations of regenerative medicine, gene therapy and pharmacology to reverse ageing."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6631383/ "Outside of affecting nutritional deficiencies or medical conditions that are due in part to gut pathogen dysbiosis, it seems unlikely that large gains in the human lifespan are going to be realized. However, the deleterious aspects of aging may be slowed or even partly reversed with these approaches if enough translational funding opportunities become available. We could certainly expect an improved quality of life and maybe a longer health-span from these technologies. In this regard, a few concepts should be mentioned starting with Caleb “Tuck” Finch’s idea of negligible senescence, which was further refined by Aubrey de Grey as Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS), aimed at developing a better understanding or even “cure” for aging [72]. Perhaps the rate of achieving these strategies would be hastened though the microbiota and its tremendous potential for revolutionary transformation. This new approach will likely culminate in novel therapies and technologies capable of repairing the known and future forms of accumulated cellular and molecular age-related damage. "

I think it is clear that today the scientific community take anti aging treatments seriously and that many other organizations with similar goals as SENS have established as a result of the progress made in the field of treating the aging problem. And since there is an actual progress in that field that is recognized by others there is no sense in questioning the anti-aging goals of SENS and treating it as a "fantasy rather than science".--ThunderheadX (talk) 19:56, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

And for the part about the DNA damage theory of aging, new studies and experiments refute the DNA damage theory of aging(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6296020/), "However, wherever normal marine or terrestrial earth conditions prevail, cumulative DNA damage does not seem to play a relevant role in aging", "The growing evidence that reprogramming of somatic cells from aged individuals rejuvenates them to their embryonic stage is giving rise to the idea that the epigenome is the central driver of aging". and the article talk more about the problems with the DNA damage theory of aging. The article DNA damage theory of aging have a section named "Inherited defects that cause premature aging", that section mention the article DNA repair-deficiency disorder for further reading and in that article there is a section about "Debate concerning "accelerated aging"" in which it is said that "Some biogerontologists question that such a thing as "accelerated aging" actually exists, at least partly on the grounds that all of the so-called accelerated aging diseases are segmental progerias. Many disease conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, etc., are associated with increased mortality. Without reliable biomarkers of aging it is hard to support the claim that a disease condition represents more than accelerated mortality" so the term "accelerated aging" is subjective and if some disease that impair DNA repair cause symptoms that are called "accelerated aging" it doesn't prove that DNA damage is the main reason for aging.

It is also important to remember that even if DNA damage is a cause for Cellular senescence(according to the reference in the criticism) you can reverse this damage with SENS's 'ApoptoSENS' program for removing problematic cells like senescent cells and the body even ends up with less cells with DNA damage. So when you consider this fact or other kinds of rejuvenation therapies developed by SENS you can't say that they are wrong when they say that DNA damage is only matter for cancer.

It is also worth to mention that in most cases DNA damage can be repaired and there is actually a clinical trial for a drug that was found to fix age-related DNA damage in mice https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170323150518.htm So even if SENS is wrong about DNA damage that doesn't give any scientific backing for the "criticism" mentioned in the article. --ThunderheadX (talk) 19:21, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

For the statement "SENS agenda is fanciful and the highly complicated biomedical phenomena involved in the aging process contain too many unknowns for SENS to be fully implementable". according to this article: https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/504845 , the belief that the aging process is extremely complex and unknown for us is wrong and isn't accepted anymore, "For much of the 20th century the ageing process was thought to be the result of the interplay of many different biological processes, each with relatively small effects on organismal lifespan. However, this model is no longer tenable. Rather it seems a few biological mechanisms, including nutrient sensing, telomere attrition and cellular senescence, mediate large effects on health and longevity". The article adds that it is still premature to claim that we know everything about the aging process, but it is obvious that scientists know enough to research and develop therapies for aging. The statement from the "criticism" is just part of the "initial delusions of complexity" the article is talking about and this is the problem with using "scientific opinions" that were made around 15 years ago, it isn't a scientific fact but an opinion that gets outdated after several years even if it was true/accepted when it was made. --ThunderheadX (talk) 16:53, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

After posting above, ThunderheadX proceeded to delete the scientific controversies section of this article. I believed that those edits were against the consensus established here and reverted them (diffs: [1], [2]). ThunderheadX replied on my talk page and claimed that I inadequately explained my reversion. I strongly believe that removing criticism for SENS were not justified by ThunderheadX's sources or at least that section blanking was too simplistic a solution, given the opinions expressed on this talk page.

• First, SENS has appeared several times in WP:Fringe noticeboard threads ([3], [4], [5]), suggesting it should be treated with care like other fringe topics.
• Second, the Scientific controversy section of this article is cited with reliable sources. Removing those sections for age alone would violate WP:Recentism. As the other editors explained above, changing the section would require specific claims, by reliable sources, that indicate the medical community has changed its opinion about the viability of SENS and its research. The first source that ThunderheadX refers to above simply states that SENS exists and its research goals; the second source says simply that SENS "should be mentioned" and that "perhaps" it would result in treatments for aging. Aging is only a peripheral topic in the article, reducing its use for this article anyway (it's about "gut microbiota"). The third and fourth articles do not mention SENS at all. The fifth article states that SENS has a "mechanistic ontology" of aging.

Again, the criteria for removing the section would be a reversal of the medical community's opinion on SENS in particular and proof that those controversies are no longer notable for readers. None of the sources provided by ThunderheadX meet that bar. —Wingedserif (talk) 00:34, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Wingedserif You are confusing between criticism about SENS itself and criticism about SENS's goal which is curing aging. The criticism in this article is about SENS's agenda of curing aging and not about the ability of SENS itself of doing it. What I am showing in my sources is that SENS's goal of curing aging isn't controversial and that there is a significant progress in this field that shows that the criticism against SENS agenda is just wrong. You just conclude that the sources I provided doesn't imply that SENS itself is able to help curing aging and it isn't just wrong it also have nothing to do with the subject here.

And WP:Recentism have nothing to do with my criticism against the sources in the "scientific controversy" section, removing statements that proved to be wrong by new studies is just common sense. The sources also talk about things like "current technology" and "foreseeable future" which are very time dependent. --ThunderheadX (talk) 01:52, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. Citing 13 year old research as "controversy" is now so outdated as to be misleading

Simul (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 08:06, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

The strategies table is extremely outdated

The table in the article is from 17 years ago and is different from The table in the SENS website that describe their strategies for fighting aging.--ThunderheadX (talk) 14:03, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

RfC on SENS controversy section

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

By the raw numbers, there are more editors favoring retaining a controversy section than removing it but assessing consensus is not merely an exercise in counting noses. After disregarding irrelevant arguments, that is, ...those that flatly contradict established policy, those based on personal opinion only, those that are logically fallacious, and those that show no understanding of the matter of issue... the arguments for removing it are couched mainly in terms of the the manual of style or the related WP:CRITS essay and the WP:DUE policy. The arguments to retain this section are couched mostly in terms of the WP:FRINGE content guideline. To take these arguments in order from the most important to least: The arguments for removal on WP:DUE grounds are, upon closer investigation, arguments that particular sources used to support the criticism of the SENS hypothesis are unduly prominent. There are other editors that argue that criticism is actually covered in due proportion so at most, this can at most taken as an argument that the controversy section is weighted to the wrong sources, not that it is non-policy-compliant as a whole. The arguments in favor of retention which reference the WP:FRINGE guideline carry greater weight than those that refer to MOS or essay grounds. It has also recently been confirmed that the Wikipedia community considers SENS to be a fringe theory, further supporting retention on those grounds. In summary, both the number and strength of arguments below demonstrate that there is a consensus to retain a controversy section at this time. (non-admin closure) Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 22:21, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

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Should the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence article contain a controversy section? —Wingedserif (talk) 04:33, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

• Update: Alyarin9000 has posted a thread to the fringe noticeboard, for more clarity on whether SENS falls under fringe theories. To avoid confusion, this thread should still be the primary point of discussion about the controversy section. —Wingedserif (talk) 18:07, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
• Update: I will likely request a closure of this RfC fairly soon, as conversation has slowed both here and at WP:FTN. —Wingedserif (talk) 22:20, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Survey

• Yes: as I explained in the thread above, SENS is a fringe theory ([6],[7],[8]) that needs to be treated with care, which includes WP:DUE criticism by the medical community. The sources currently used in the section could be better or more current. Still, they are not so doubtful or easily contradicted that the entire section merits blanking. I'm open to proposals that weave that criticism into the article in a way that doesn't violate WP:CRITS, but I don't think the information should be taken out. —Wingedserif (talk) 04:38, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
• Yes The material should stay, though a different section title should be appropriate. Fringe ideas must be presented in the context of sensible mainstream science for NPOV. Alexbrn (talk) 05:37, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
• Yes per reasons already stated above. This is far, far from being an established scientific theory and should be treated as such by the article. PraiseVivec (talk) 13:21, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
• No As I said earlier, there is a wide scientific support for SENS goals and many organizations share the same goals, and I provided a link to a research that point out this fact. the "criticism" in the article criticize SENS goals of curing aging and made a clear distinction between SENS research branches that are "broadly supported by the medical research community" and SENS goals of curing aging as if there is nothing to support the possibility of this idea. The criticism ignore the fact that there are many companies and studies focused on curing aging, mainly because the criticism is mostly 16 years old and a lot have changed in those years. Some of the editors mentioned the fact that the studies I bring here are in-vitro or on animals and say that we should ignore those studies because of this while the entire "criticism" isn't backed by any kind of research. --ThunderheadX (talk) 12:46, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
• Yes A section should be created for it in the article.Sea Ane (talk) 14:05, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
• No Rename it to "Validity" and make major changes. Alyarin9000 (talk) 21:19, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
• No The section just seems exaggeratied and inappropriately labelled. Giving a single 2005 Warner piece of no particular note a section seems WP:UNDUE for prominence over other NAS and NIH pieces -- and the section title "Controversy" seems inappropriate wording. Also giving the Technology Review 2006 competition re SENS that did not discredit it also does not seem particularly worth this much space or to be a "controversy". There are other NAS and NIH pieces that mention SENS, but I'm just not seeing any significant coverage where they use the word "Controversy" or that "exceptionally optomistic" could be summarized as describing a "Controversy". I suggest relabel, decrease these 5 paragraphs down to two, and conclude with what the judges said about "have not demonstrated that SENS is unworthy of discussion, but the proponents of SENS have not made a compelling case for it." That's not as sensational but is seems the reality isn't sensational. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:42, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
• Comment I can't say "yes" or "no": criticism and controversy sections are discouraged by the manual of style, but due criticism isn't (and can also be inline and other sections). At first glance it does seem to me that some of the criticism is WP:DUE. If some recent independent mainstream sources refute some of that criticism, it could be mentioned. From my (non-expert) impression, when I see a list of symptoms associated with a list of hypothetical treatments, with a conclusion that those continued therapies would solve the cause of those symptoms, and that some of the tenets are still being debated (like the DNA damage theory of aging), the practical aspect is not very convincing or remains highly theoretical, possibly even science fiction at the moment... Then I see sources agreeing with that. —PaleoNeonate – 20:00, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, per Wingedserif's explanation above.Idealigic (talk) 13:52, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

There is a lot of double standards from the supporters of the "criticism" section. One article with nothing but someone who claim that SENS goals are "fantasy rather than science" is considered reliable source but when I provide studies about reversing aging in the lab(there are even in-vivo studies like this https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5679279/ ) some editors bring up WP:MEDRS despite the fact that the sources in the criticism aren't based on any kind of research on humans and aren't considered as either primary or secondary sources according to the article. Some editors confuse between criticism on SENS's goals and criticism on SENS's strategy of achieving those goals and the criticism is clearly focused on SENS's goals and even made an exception for SENS's research that is focused on "diseases" like curing cancer and alzheimer and calls it "broadly supported by the medical research community" despite the fact that we have virtually zero progress in alzheimer research and according to our current knowledge we can't consider curing alzheimer as more plausible than SENS's goals of curing aging. The article have no source that prove that SENS research is ineffective, and this is without even mentioning the fact that SENS also focus on funding and supporting other research groups in the field of curing aging. --ThunderheadX (talk) 14:04, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

The first sentence of WP:MEDPRI on medical sources says "Primary sources should not be cited with intent of "debunking", contradicting, or countering conclusions made by secondary sources." That is why the current sources in the article are secondary-source review papers and not primary-source experiments. Alzheimer's research has nothing to do with the sources in this article. I, above, explain why each of the sources you have used has very little, if any, bearing on SENS. The criticism sources, in contrast, explicitly claim that SENS is unreliable. —Wingedserif (talk) 19:12, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Read the definition of secondary source in the WP:MEDRS article: " summarizes one or more primary or secondary sources to provide an overview of current understanding of the topic, to make recommendations, or to combine results of several studies". The sources(especially the one article that is referenced 4 times in the criticism) in the criticism aren't a secondary sources, they are opinions and reactions to Aubrey de grey and contains no primary sources/studies for their claims. You just decided to see those articles as "secondary sources". One of the articles I provided in the discussion: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5161440/ prove that the scientific community views on SENS's goal(curing aging) have changed and is now in support of treating aging: "Newly armed with an idea of how humans age, numerous companies and government-funded programmes have sprung up to address human ageing as a problem in and of itself, rather than trying to address the diseases of ageing separately", but you just dismissed it and said that they just mentioned SENS. You need to stop confusing between criticizing SENS's goal(the main subject here) and criticizing SENS methods/strategy of achieving this goal. And for the criticism on SENS's methods, the "source" behind the criticism just said that Aubrey de Grey didn't shown that SENS strategies like removing senescence cells can extend lifespan but today it is proven that senescent cells does play a significant role in aging and its diseases: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12325-020-01287-0 https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/504845 (both are secondary sources)and the same goes to advanced-glycation-end products(Extracellular matrix stiffening)(https://www.nature.com/articles/s12276-021-00561-7 a secondary source) and mitochonrial mutations(https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/pdf/S1550-4131(16)30502-2.pdf ) and the rest of SENS's targets for curing aging. --ThunderheadX (talk) 20:58, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I will repeat: your sources do not reference SENS at all and therefore don't show that SENS is compatible with or influencing the wider medical community (I will explain more in a response to Alyarin9000 below). For the Warner article, it matters that 28 biogerontologists criticized the SENS method—what is established is the view of the field on the SENS program. —Wingedserif (talk) 11:48, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

First of all you need to stop changing the subject, the criticism talk about SENS's agenda of curing aging in general: "many critics arguing that the SENS agenda is fanciful and the highly complicated biomedical phenomena involved in the aging process contain too many unknowns for SENS to be fully implementable in the foreseeable future" and not just about SENS's methods in doing so. You also need to realize that you decide that sources are reliable/unreliable according to your own opinion on the subject. A reaction of those biogerontologists to Aubrey de Grey isn't considered as neither a secondary or primary source or as more reliable than actual primary and secondary sources. You are ignoring more recent and factual source that doesn't just support SENS's agenda but also SENS in particular. And no, the source doesn't need to focus on SENS the same way your reaction paper is focused on Aubrey de Grey. You are also ignoring several secondary sources that prove that many if not all of SENS strategies of curing aging are compatible with current knowledge in the field. All this because a reaction article that was made 16 years ago... and yes, age does matter: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)#Use_up-to-date_evidence. according to the article, sources older than 5 years should be superseded by more up to date sources, And your "source"(it isn't even considered as a reliable source to begin with) is 16 years old.--ThunderheadX (talk) 17:30, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm so tired. Please stop criticizing me and calling me a hypocrite for disagreeing with you. —Wingedserif (talk) 17:00, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Didn't called you a hypocrite. I just said that there is a serious problem with the way you judge sources. The way you judge sources and evidences just doesn't make sense and have nothing to do with wikipedia's rules. --ThunderheadX (talk) 17:18, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Wingedserif, respectfully, Alzheimer's research is entirely relevant to aging research. Alzheimer's disease is arguably just a manifestation of aging itself.

Coming from the position of someone with a degree in this field, I can maybe describe this a bit more succinctly than Thunderhead. Yes, SENS is preclinical. All preclinical research comes with the heavy caveat of not having yet gone through human trials - but all medicine goes along this stage, and highlighting that as a controversy is misleading. Before they finished their trials, did the covid vaccine pages have a 'controversy' section? Didn't think so. That would be harmful.

SENS has had a long history, but its position has mostly been adopted by the wider community, though under a different name. The Hallmarks of Aging, writen by Lopez-Otin et al in 2012, describes the same position as SENS - plus a few other additons - and is by far the most highly cited paper in the field (7296 - an incredibly impressive number). It is not established fact, but it now a very well-grounded theory on the causes of aging, with a number of different branches of thought (such as those which highlight chronic inflammation as a result of hallmark accumulation - suggesting that this inflammation is a pacemaker for the whole process).

I would suggest the following: Add a note that SENS focuses on preclinical research that has not yet finished human trials, and that it is one of multiple competing theories. Highlight its similarity to the respected 'Hallmarks of Aging' paper, but note that it focuses on the early stage of research and thus the validity of its approach has not yet been conclusively proven. And rename the 'criticism' section to 'validity', to maintain a more neutral stance. Alyarin9000 (talk) 21:09, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

My statement about Alzheimer's was replying to ThunderheadX's claim that research and treatment of Alzheimer's should be held to the same standards as SENS (which I disagree with), not that I think Alzheimer's is unrelated to aging.

Do you have any sources that connect The Hallmarks of Aging to SENS' proposed research program? One of the problems with the claims that SENS should not contain criticism is that the sources used to defend it, in large part, would require WP:SYNTHESIS, interpretation on editors' part. (That violates our rules about WP:No original research, because those sources do not mention SENS by name or mention it only in passing.) Just because there might be a valid theory of how to treat aging medically does not mean that SENS inherits that reliability. —Wingedserif (talk) 21:53, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

You said "claim that research and treatment of Alzheimer's should be held to the same standards as SENS (which I disagree with)", That is the double standards I talked about before, you have different standards for sources that support SENS and other standards when it comes to criticism of SENS. you just consider sources as "reliable" when they say something you think is true but when better sources says otherwise you consider them as "unreliable" and use a completely different set of rules for the sources you don't agree with. The supporters of the "criticism" section are the only ones who made interpretations here, because they took baseless opinions and decided that there are probably some studies behind those claims despite the fact that non is provided in the sources for those claims, the criticism just takes every statement made by a criticizer of SENS and treat it as a fact. but when I provide relevant sources that prove that the scientific opinion on SENS's goals have changed(again, the article's criticism is about SENS's goal of curing aging) it is completely dismissed. There are plenty of secondary sources that support SENS's strategy and its obvious that even if their strategy might not be 100% complete/perfect it is the right way toward the goal of curing aging. --ThunderheadX (talk) 23:24, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

It's not a problematic "double standard." It is the policy of this encyclopedia. As I have explained, SENS is in the area of both medical sources and fringe theories, which require higher standards of evidence than other topics. It is also telling that your support for blanking this section is based on your belief that SENS is "the right way toward the goal of curing aging." Wikipedia is not advocacy. —Wingedserif (talk) 11:48, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

You just decided to call SENS a "fringe theory" without anything to back your claim. Links to some discussion with some editor considering SENS as fringe isn't a proof for anything. Your double standards aren't just about you dismissing secondary and primary sources that prove that SENS strategy is the right way(it targets many types of age-related damage that are responsible for many of the symptoms of aging and this is enough for saying that SENS is on the right way for curing aging), you also give a lot of weight for "sources" which aren't even considered as secondary or primary sources and are nothing more than opinions expressed as a comment to someone else. You should stop letting your personal opinion affecting the way you judge different sources. --ThunderheadX (talk) 16:48, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Ah, thank you for the clarification. As to the sources that connect them - just look at the Hallmarks of Aging paper itself - its targets are effectively identical to SENS's suggestions, it just adds two. To list them (Hallmarks lifted from the HoA paper itself, SENS lifted from the SENS site)...

SENS: Extracellular aggregates. HoA: Loss of proteostasis.

SENS: Extracellular matrix stiffening. HoA: Again, loss of proteostasis.

SENS: Intracellular aggregates. HoA: Wow, SENS likes (hates?) their loss of proteostasis.

SENS: Death-resistant cells. HoA: Cellular senescence.

SENS: Mitochondrial mutations. HoA: Mitochondrial dysfunction.

SENS: Cancerous cells. HoA: All cancer is caused by epigenetic alterations or genomic instability. Both hallmarks.

SENS: Cell loss, tissue atrophy (SENS strategy: introduce stem cells) HoA: Stem cell exhaustion

(with the addition of HoA: Altered intercellular communication. SENS also doesn't quite do epigenetic alterations justice.)

As you can see, especially if you read hallmarks of aging, both theories are effectively identical, with HoA just building atop SENS a little. SENS was the precursor. You could argue it's incomplete compared to HoA, but that isn't damning. Alyarin9000 (talk) 22:23, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Just to add, if you actively search the hallmarks of aging paper itself, under the relevant sections they will describe the same features SENS describe. Aggregates and all. A cursory search or ctrl+f shows that they clearly refer to the same thing. Misfolded proteins aggregate, which is exactly what loss of proteostasis describes. ECM crosslinking arguably fits under proteostasis, as these are modified proteins - but additional papers can easily be found which highlight the relevance of this crosslinking to aging (see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342138218_Stochastic_non-enzymatic_modification_of_long-lived_macromolecules_-_A_missing_hallmark_of_aging for further information on this ECM crosslinking, if you don't think it quite fits proteostasis.) Alyarin9000 (talk) 22:30, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi, Alyarin9000, this probably seems pedantic, but the "Hallmarks of Aging" authors don't seem to explicitly link their criteria to those of SENS—it makes it hard to tell whether SENS has influenced current medical theories of aging or if there's just a coincidence in terms, which is why I mentioned WP:SYNTH above. The paper, as far as I can tell, doesn't cite SENS theorists (admittedly, I'm not an expert in this area). Ideally what we'd have is an independent, secondary source that says something along the lines of "The Hallmarks of Aging model built on the work of the SENS framework," and in my searching, I haven't found anything like that. The second paper you linked does cite de Grey, which helps, but he also seems to have advised on the paper.

For the record, I did find this news source [9], which suggests some increasing popular acceptance of SENS ideas after 2005. —Wingedserif (talk) 11:48, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

It does seem pretty pedantic Wingedserif. As far as bioscience goes, this is basically WP:CALC - SENS's approach is obviously parallel to Hallmarks, and the current criticism section could therefore be applied to Hallmarks, as the criticisms (now discredited) would be the same - suggesting that a paper with over 7000 citations is fringe. I don't know about you, but I feel that triggers false balance.

When I have discussed SENS with colleagues, I have had a coworker in a university lab state that one of his prior coworkers was fascinated with SENS. A lecturer stated that it may be so effective as to be immoral, and another colleague agrees that SENS's approach would likely hold benefit, but questions how quickly that benefit may come about - if it would be as extreme as quickly as SENS proposes. None outright dismissed it, and I have spoken to four separate experts on the subject - I again invoke false balance, and would suggest we also de-categorize it from 'fringe science' and 'alternative medicine'.

Maria Blasco, one of the co-authors of the Hallmarks of Aging, now sits on SENS's scientific advisory board, showing some level of agreement, and lending authority. SENS frequently speaks at conferences attended by the authors of the hallmarks paper and serious Yale scientists, I could go on.

What I will state is the CURRENT controversy around SENS and the field in general is the question of how effective it may be. It could be a highly effective treatment strategy for individual diseases, say, but would it really cause such a huge boost in lifespan? As far as i'm aware, the field is effectively split 50/50 on that.

If you would like, I could write a draft alternative version of the controversy section, highlighting its parallels to Hallmarks, the current question of if it is overstating its potential efficacy etc? Alyarin9000 (talk) 16:22, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

If you'd like to draft an alternative version, that would probably help; since it's hard to know whether a new approach would be an improvement w/out one to look at.

Otherwise, I don't know what to say. If anything is not under the purview of WP:CALC, it's medical science. I said why the linking of another paper's reliability to SENS is both non-obvious and not supported by current sources. I described a specific kind of source that would meet the criteria, and I don't think you've provided one, since what you've referred to is either a non-citable conversation or a form of original research.

For re-categorizing SENS as not WP:FRINGE, I think we would need a separate RfC on their noticeboard? That is where the consensus that SENS is fringe was made. It might be a good idea to ping them on their talk page, although I'm trying to figure out whether I would be forum-shopping if I did so at this point. —Wingedserif (talk) 17:00, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I think reassessing the 'fringe' designation is an important step to inform any further action on the page. Were it not fringe, the exact nature of the rewrite, and the context of editing the controversy section etc would be entirely different. I'll give them a ping Wingedserif. Alyarin9000 (talk) 19:18, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

• Here is a link to an extension to this discussion that should ideally be resumed here rather than at the other page. —PaleoNeonate – 12:14, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Wingedserif You should point out the fact that nobody had anything meaningful to say against SENS in the fringe theories noticeboard: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Strategies_for_Engineered_Negligible_Senescence and nobody had anything to say against the fact that there is a scientific consensus behind SENS strategy and agenda in general. The secondary and primary sources I provided here(both in the fringe board and this RfC) prove that SENS target known and significant causes of aging, and they don't need to specifically mention SENS, we don't need a source to prove that when SENS talk about "senescent cells" they actually talk about senescent cells and asking for such source is simply ridiculous. My secondary sources are much more meaningful than a letter that was written by some gerontologists to Aubrey de Grey 16 years ago. This letter isn't even considered as neither secondary or primary source according to WP:MEDRS, so even if we ignore the fact that it is 16 years old and should've been replaced by a more recent source more than a decade ago according to [[10]], this letter to Aubrey de Grey shouldn't be considered as a source to begin with and obviously not as something more reliable than the secondary sources I provided here. --ThunderheadX (talk) 22:21, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

ThunderheadX, since you are a single-purpose account who has already made your views abundantly clear, I ask you to stop WP:BLUDGEONing this discussion by repeatedly posting subtle variations on the same argument over and over. Until you provide a single, reliable, independent source that says "SENS is approved by the gerontology community" (for the umpteenth time, your sources do not mention SENS at all), I will remain unconvinced. —Wingedserif (talk) 23:01, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Wingedserif You keep ignoring my arguments and use personal attacks instead of actually facing my arguments. Then you blame me for WP:BLUDGEON when I repeat some of the points I made earlier when I simply talk about both the discussion in this RfC and the very short one in the fringe board. You say that non of my sources mention SENS at all? I posted here at least two sources that mention SENS as one of the organizations that work for curing aging and you actually commented about them and dismissed them because they "just" mention SENS and its goals or "just" said that perhaps SENS research will be accelerated due to discoveries on gut microbiota. Your condition for a source that explicitly says "SENS is approved by the gerontology community" is completely ridiculous and its obvious that you can't find such statement about 99.99% of medical organizations regardless of their success. The sources shows that the scientific community support the fact that SENS target major causes of aging phenotypes and we don't need more than this to prove that SENS isn't "fringe science" and can help the effort of curing aging. And there is nothing that says otherwise since the "source" behind the "criticism" isn't even considered as a real and reliable source. --ThunderheadX (talk) 02:50, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

The above is not a personal attack. It could be considered an aspersion, but the evidence speaks for itself on this page and the FTN thread, then SPA is a simple fact of the public edit history. The !votes above were not tagged as such, but it's common practice to mark them with the {{spa}} template at deletion or RFC discussions. —PaleoNeonate – 18:48, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

PaleoNeonate Wingedserif Is just trying to attack me because he can't face my arguments and he want to ignore the secondary sources I provided here. There is no rule in wikipedia that say that you should ignore wiki editors just because they have few edits outside of one subject(I only had two edits in SENS article, and a similar number of edits on unrelated articles) he just act as if there is such rule because he keep looking for an excuse to ignore any fact that contradict his opinion. --ThunderheadX (talk) 12:46, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should MIT Technology Review contest be in the Scientific Reception section?

To reflect some of the RfC consensus that a section title should not contain "controversy", I changed that section to "Scientific reception". However, the more research into the the 2005 MIT Technology Review contest I do, the more skeptical I become that it meets that description. First, the contest was partially funded by de Grey's Methuselah Foundation. Second, obviously, a popular, judged contest is not consistent with the academic standard of peer review. Finally, of the judges panel, several were computer scientists or entrepreneurs—not exactly qualified for judging biomedical claims. I'm thinking of splitting that subsection off into something else. What do others think? —Wingedserif (talk) 17:08, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your editing, Wingedserif. To keep the article neutral, I think it's also important to note how the reception has publicly changed for some writers since 2005. Brian K. Kennedy was an author (among others) in one of the MIT Technology Review submissions, but in a 2015 interview alongside De Grey, Kennedy said, "I think that at least superficially there was a significant difference in what we were saying ten years ago - and in reality there was some difference too - but there has been a lot of convergence on both sides so that I doubt that our messages are that much different now." Kennedy is also now a member of the SENS Research Foundation research advisory board. S. Jay Olshansky was an author (among others) in the 2005 EMBO Reports article, but in a 2021 interview alongside De Grey, Olshansky said, "There's a lot of exciting work that's going on right now including work that's going on in Aubrey's lab and some of the folks that he's been involved with." I think this updated information is relevant and important, but I don't know how to best include it. Any thoughts 65.50.153.6 (talk) 00:23, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

References

This merging/growing closer of positions is definitely something that came up in the RfCs. I think we'd need at least a reliable-source news story to be able to discuss it in the article. Do you know of any unaffiliated news or published articles that reflect this more recent consensus? A Youtube video is not citable for WP articles; I am not familiar with Mendelspod but if they are unaffiliated with any of the research centers / researchers mentioned, it might be usable. I'm going to review WP:Interviews and some related RS pages to think about it. —Wingedserif (talk) 15:30, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't know of published articles, and I'm only aware of these two interviews. Mendelspod is unaffiliated. The interview with De Grey and Kennedy by Mendelspod took place at a conference organized in part by SENS Research Foundation, but Mendelspod interviews different researchers every month in its regular podcasts. It caught my attention since Kennedy contributed to the cited 2005 MIT criticisms yet made the statements I mentioned above. The interview with De Grey and Olshansky took place on The Healthspan Show, owned by LSX Ltd, which hosts events on topics in biotech. It's also unaffiliated. I noticed that interview because Olshansky was an author of the cited 2005 EMBO Reports criticism but made those positive statements recently in 2021 in the interview. Is it unusable if posted/accessed on youtube? If you have the time and inclination, they're both interesting interviews to listen to. The quotes above are transcriptions of comments by Kennedy and Olshansky (who themselves are reliable sources) from those publicly available, recorded, unaffiliated interviews. I think they reliably show an important, relevant evolution of opinion by Kennedy and Olshansky compared to 2005 on the value of medical research on age-related damage repair from Aubrey and SENS. Do you think this should be in the article in some way? 65.50.153.6 (talk) 16:57, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Per WP:RSPYT, YouTube videos as sources are discouraged, although they can inherit the reliability of the verified account that posted them. I'm not familiar with The Healthspan Show, but since they are a non-news business, I don't know how much editorial oversight and independence they would have. I agree that Olshansky changing his opinion about SENS would be notable and worthwhile including in the article (esp. given his 2013 article "Science Fact versus SENS Foreseeable"), but I think we'd need to find a higher quality source than the interviews, given the WP:FRINGE status of the page. —Wingedserif (talk) 23:13, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation. What are your thoughts on Mendelspod with Kennedy? I also thought perhaps the interviews would still be acceptable since the issue revolves around stated opinions rather than traditional peer-reviewed scientific research; and that their statements in the interviews would be treated similarly to statements made on a personal website as mentioned on WP:Interviews. The 2005 criticisms (and the other 2013 writing from Olshanksy you mentioned) are after all a contest submission and opinion articles, albeit in notable publications. 65.50.153.6 (talk) 03:29, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

After the amount of RfCs and discussion on this page about this topic—I don't think this meets the "non-controversial" criteria of WP:ABOUTSELF; we need to use the best sources for this page. An informal interview published to YouTube or an another commercial podcast is just not the same quality/reliability as an academic journal. As soon as there's a reliable, secondary source, preferably a literature review, that updates the field's view of SENS, those views can be included. Until then, we have to WP:WAIT and follow the existing reliable sources. —Wingedserif (talk) 03:55, 28 July 2021 (UTC)