From: John S. Novak, III (jsn@ts002d06.per-md.concentric.net)
Date: Sun Dec 19 1999 - 03:05:56 MST
Natasha Vita-More said:
> This month's Wired magazine cover story on The Exploding Science of
> Superlongevity, Your Life Span Revealed! features the article
> "Don't Die, Stay Pretty" by Brian Alexander on page 184.
Finally picked up the issue.
Mainly, I'll have you know, because I knew you and Max were in it, and
because I saw a Vinge article in it while browsing at the newstand.
Normally, I can't stand Wired. The current issue exemplifies the
reason for my opinion-- the table of contents is on page 41. Most of
the pages before that were advertising, and the one "article" before
it was a montage of advertising with prices and URLs worked into most
of the paragraphs.
And they still feel the ened to charge me five bucks.
They should, quite literally, pay me to increase their distribution
thus generating more advertising income.
But I digress.
That rant aside, I cannot wax too enthusiastic about the article in
question. In the abstract, yes, it was a good thing, spreading the
idea of extended lifespans. On the other hand....
It wasn't very well-thought out. Or proof-read. (I need a better
word than that. What I mean is, no one read the article to make
sure it was consistent. No one sanity-checked it. But I like the
word "proof-thought" more. No one proof-thought the article.)
Those of you who have the issue, I direct your attention to page 184,
the top. The "Immortality Reality Check" graphic. (There is
impending irony.) Look at it. Read it. Really read it. Then look
at the graph.
Notice that the projected lifespan of those who will be 40 years old
next year is 135 years total. Now notice that the projected lifespan
of those who will be 30 years old next year is... 130 years total?
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
And that's not a typo, that's a braino. The bars match the text under
the graphic. Further, the graphic and its text don't even really
match the text _of the article_. My life is supposed to be
effectively over by 2100, by that graphic, yet the text of the article
claims that by 2099 there will be no effective limit on human
lifespan.
If you subtract the graphic from the article, the article improves
considerably. It deals with some fairly hard science concerns, such
as the telomere issues, some of the other genetic aging factors,
genetic therapies, projected stem cell advances, and artificial organs
and tissue engineering. It does this in a fairly small amount of
text.
Unfortunately, in a magazine like Wired, I strongly suspect that many
readers are going to go foggy reading through that text, and look at
the nice (and stupid) graphic on page 184.
The problem is likely that when the article was written, the words had
to fairly closely match what was actually said in interviews. When
they got to putting the graphic together, they made the huge
mistake of allowing themselves to think without being critical.
(I also think they were fairly pessimistic with their predicitions,
but they seemed to be considering conventional and macroscale genetic
advances only. I think medical nanotechnology is going to produce
much more significant results by 2050. But that's a quibble.)
-- John S. Novak, III jsn@concentric.net The Humblest Man on the Net
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