Why you should actually read this site, not ridicule it

为什么你应当真正阅读这个网站，不应当嘲笑它

This is one of my five FAQ ("Frequently-Asked Questions") pages: it covers general arguments that SENS won't work. [Specific arguments, i.e. ones concerning the actual scientific proposals that make up the SENS approach, are dealt with on the "SENS targets" pages and in greater depth in my publications; the best place to start is here.] The other FAQ pages respond to:

这是我的FAQ （“常被问”）网页的5个问题之一：它涵盖了总的争论：SENS不会运转。[特别的争论，就是，关心构成SENS方法的实际科学建议的人们，涉及到"SENS目标"网页，深刻地涉及到我的出版物；最好开始阅读的地方是在这里 （ here）。] 其它FAQ网页回答：

- concerns that defeating aging is a bad idea or a low priority,

- 打败老化是一个坏主意或一个低度优先的关注，
- questions about how long people of what current age may live,

-现龄人能活多久的问题，
- criticisms of how I'm going about making SENS a reality, and

-我将如何着手使SENS成为现实的批评意见，和
- queries about how one can help the SENS effort.

-询问人们如何能帮助SENS的努力。

1000-year lifespans! - that's obviously ridiculous

-1000年的寿命！- 那显然是荒谬可笑的

-We're far too ignorant about aging to have any idea how to combat it

-我们对老化知道太少，没有任何与之抗争的主意

-If you had lab training, you'd know how infeasible your suggestions are

- 如果你有过实验室训练，你就会知道你的建议是多么不可行

-Why even think about reversing aging until we can greatly retard it?

- 为什么直到我们可以大大延缓老化前不考虑逆转老化？

-Where's your data?

- 你的资料在哪里？

-Don't you know what Crick said? "Evolution is cleverer than you are"

- 你知道克里克说的话吗？"进化比你聪明"

-People have always wanted to cure aging, but we only ever make slow progress

- 人们曾经总是想要治愈老化，但我们总是进展很慢

-Aging isn't a disease, so obviously it can't be "cured"

- 老化不是一种疾病，所以它显然不可能被"治愈"

-Why don't your senior colleagues echo your optimism about timescales?

- 为什么你的前辈同事没有回响你的关于时间尺度的乐观主义？

1000-year lifespans! - that's obviously ridiculous

1000年的寿命！- 那显然是荒谬可笑的

It's certainly ridiculous to suppose that we will have therapies in the next few decades that will allow us to live more than a few decades longer than we do now, let alone 1000 years. But we don't need therapies like that in order for people who are in middle age in a few decades from now to live to 1000. Why not? Because we only have to fix things in time, not all at once. We don't need to know how to stop people dying of aging at age 150 yet -- we won't need to know that until we have some 150-year-olds.

以下的假设当然是很可笑的：在以后的几十年里，我们将会有一些疗法，让我们比现在多活几十年，不要去管什么1000年吧。但是，我们不需要这样的疗法，为的是从现在起的几十年内中年人能活1000岁。为什么不需要？因为我们不得不分次行事，而不是一次性地行事。我们也不需要知道怎样停止人们老死于150岁 – 我们不需要知道，直到我们有了一些150岁的人。

Same for 200-year-olds, and so on. When we look at the historical precedent for the rate at which new technologies (flight, computers, etc.) are improved once they are first achieved at all, this means that even the first-generation rejuvenation therapies, the ones that give us only a few decades, will almost certainly be enough to put us above "life extension escape velocity" such that we won't die of aging however long we live. For more details of why, see my timeframes page.

同样也适用于200岁的人等。当我们瞧瞧新技术（飞行、计算机，等）刚出炉时被改善速度的历史先例，这意味着，即使第一代的返老还童疗法（它们只给我们几十年时间），几乎肯定也会使我们能够达到上述的“生命扩展逃逸速度”，以至于使我们不会老死，而是活得长久。为什么？详见我的时间框架网页 （timeframes page）。

We're far too ignorant about aging to have any chance of combating it

我们对老化知道太少，没有任何与之抗争的机会

No short answer to this could be persuasive; my answer is strong by virtue of its attention to detail. To learn why I claim that we are likely to cure aging within 30 or so years if we start trying, see my detailed science pages, starting with this one.

对于这个问题，简短的答案不足以服众；我的答案由于说得详细而足够

有力。要知道为什么我声称，如果我们现在就开始实验，那么在30年左右之内我们可以治愈老化，请看我的详细的科学网页，从这一个（this one）开始。

If you had lab training, you'd know how infeasible your suggestions are

如果你有过实验室训练，你就会知道你的建议是多么不可行

It's been extremely heartening to me in my gerontology career how rarely this argument has been used against me, even out of my hearing. This shows that my colleagues are genuine scientists more interested in ideas than in who generated those ideas.

在我的老年学生涯中，极为激励我的是，这一点曾经及其罕见地被用来反对我，即使在背后也是这样。这说明，我的同行们是真正的科学家，对主意比对出主意的人更感兴趣。

But also, this criticism is not entirely ad hominem anyway: I do indeed have a less detailed idea of how hard some techniques might be to develop than people who have laboratory experience of doing similar things. That's why I always discuss my proposals in minute detail with the experimentalists whose work is most closely related to my ideas. Sometimes I do this in informal ways over a beer, and sometimes I run actual meetings to scrutinise the details really thoroughly.

但无论如何，这种批评也不是完全从个人偏见出发：我确实对某些技术的发展难度，比做相似事情的、有实验室经验的人，知道得较少。这就是为什么我总是与其工作和我的主意密切相关的实验家详细讨论我的建议的原因。有时，我喝啤酒非正式地与他们讨论，有时我正式开会与他们真正彻底地审查我的建议的细节。

Two good examples are the meetings documented here and here, both of which led to publications co-authored by all or most of the participants.

两个好的例子被归类为在这里（here）和在这里（here），两者导致发表出版物，所有参加者或大部分参加者为共同作者。

Most biogerontologists doubt my predicted timeframes for progress in postponing aging (at least in what they say and don't say publicly). Unfortunately, the main reasons they do are not very good. One is that biologists have little training in developing piecemeal manipulations of complex systems and thus focus on seeking " holistic " ones (magic bullets), which are probably absent in the case of aging.

大多数生物老年学家怀疑我预言的延缓老化进步的时间框架（至少公开説或不公开说）。不幸的是，他们所说的主要理由不是很充分。其一是，生物学家在把复杂系统分解操作方面缺乏训练，这样，就把精力集中在寻找"整体性"（魔弹），它可能在老化的场合中并不存在。

The other is that some of my proposed methods involve areas of biology that are distant from what most gerontology conferences (my own excepted!) cover, so most gerontologists (who are rightly skeptical of what I say initially, and who lack enough time to read the experimental work that I cite in my papers and thereby satisfy themselves that I may have a point) don't know the relevant facts.

其二是，我建议的某些方法涉及生物学领域，这个领域颇不同于大多数老年学研讨会的内容 [我自己的（my own）除外！]，所以大多数老年学家并不知道有关的事实（他们直截了当地怀疑我开头所说的，他们又没有时间去阅读在我的论文中所列举的实验工作，因此认为 “我可能掌握了要点”）。

This situation is not so bad as it might be, because most gerontologists realise that they know a lot less about my proposed technologies than they might, and they therefore refrain from ridiculing me -- and indeed offer me considerable, albeit often only tacit, support.

这种情形也不是像可能发生的事情那么坏，因为大部分老年学家认识到，他们知道他们可能对我所建议的技术了解得少得多，因此他们避免嘲笑我 – 他们确实给了我很多支持，虽然往往只是默许。

A few of my colleagues, however, do reason that because they know more than I about how to work a pipette (since I lack experimental training) they therefore know more than I about how difficult things are that have not yet been done, even though I have researched the relevant literature and discussed the topics extensively with the relevant scientists and they have not.

然而，我的少数同事确实劝告我，因为他们用吸管操作比我懂得多（我缺乏实验训练），因此他们比我多懂那些还没有做过的事情有多困难，即使我以经研究了相关的文献并广泛地同有关的科学家讨论过该主题，而他们没有。

Luckily, most of those colleagues also "play fair" -- they say what they think of my chances of success, but at least they say it openly, in print. The only colleagues I resent are the very few who ridicule me anonymously but refuse to engage me in proper debate. (I name no names -- not here, anyway; you know who you are.)

幸运地，这些同事中的大多数行事也"光明正大" – 他们说他们考虑的是我的成功机会有多大，至少他们是公开地说（发表文章）。我愤恨的唯一同事们是那少数人，他们不留姓名地嘲笑我，不给我参加适当的辩论。（我不说出名字来 – 不管怎样，不在这里说；你知道你是谁。）

Why even think about reversing aging until we can greatly retard it?

为什么直到我们可以大大延缓老化前不考虑逆转老化？

Because it's not the case that reversing aging is necessarily all that much harder (or indeed any harder) than retarding it. Retarding aging is like keeping a leaking boat afloat by putting your hand over the hole.

因为情况是，逆转老化不一定都比延缓老化困难得多（或者说确实有点较困难）。延缓老化像是用你的手堵住漏洞而让一只漏船漂浮。

Reversing aging is like keeping it afloat by throwing water over the side. Of course, if you don't throw water out quickly enough then the boat will still fill up, but if you do, you can make a nearly-sunk boat almost empty again, which you can't ever do by putting your hand over the hole. But both methods require about the same technological sophistication.

逆转老化像是把水抽出去而让它漂浮。当然，如果你抽水不够快，那么这只船还会灌满水，但如果抽水够快，可以使一只即将沉没的船再次几乎没水，这是用你的手堵住漏洞永远办不到的。但是，这两种方法都需要同样的技术上的技巧。

Where's your data?

你的资料在哪里？

I am always rather depressed when I see people rejecting my predictions on the basis that I have no data -- as if the Wright brothers had data in, say, 1900 suggesting that powered flight would be developed a few years later.

因为我没有资料，所以当我因没有资料而看到人们拒绝我的预言时，我总是感到相当沮丧 – 好像Wright兄弟有资料，在1900年建议几年以后可以开发动力飞行似的。

Of course they did have data in the sense that any engineer bases his designs on existing knowledge about the system he wants to manipulate -- and so do I, as will be apparent to those who take the trouble to read the science pages on this website (start here), let alone my publications. The sort of data whose absence people who ask this question seem to find relevant is modest life extension from existing technology, much as if the fact that neither engines nor wings can fly constitutes evidence that the combination won't fly either.

当然，他们在一定意义上是有资料的：任何工程师都可以用已有的知识来支持他要操作的系统的设计 – 我也是，显然那些人怕麻烦去读这个网站的科学网页[从这里（here）开始]，更不用说读我的文章了。这类资料的缺失（问这个问题的人似乎发现了相关性），（他们要说的）是从现有技术来适度地扩展生命，非常像这样的实事：不管是引擎或是机翼都不能飞行，这就证明了，它们组合在一起也不能飞行。

Don't you know what Crick said? "Evolution is cleverer than you are"

你知道克里克说的话吗？"进化比你聪明"

Crick's entirely correct statement is irrelevant to curing aging -- but this irrelevance illustrates the main distinction that I think I can make between how I think about fixing aging and the way that most of my colleagues think about it.

克里克完全正确的话与治愈老化无关 – 而是这种无关性阐明了我可以弄清的在我所考虑的搞定老化与我的大多数同事们考虑它的方式的主要差别。

Most of my colleagues don't really think about postponing aging as medicine at all, and therefore they don't think about it as a type of engineering. They think about it as a sort of attempt to copy evolution. Evolution doesn't do medicine, it does new types of organisms. And evolution is, indeed, pretty good at creating long-lived organisms starting from relatively short-lived organisms (when it is so inclined -- which it isn't always, but it is often enough).

我的大多数同事并不真正完全把延缓老化考虑为是医学，因此他们并不认为它是一个类型的工程学。他们把它看作是拷贝进化的一类尝试。进化并不搞医学，它搞新类型的有机体。进化在从相对短寿有机体创造长寿有机体方面确实做得很好（当它有这个倾向时 – 它不总是有这个倾向，但常常有）。

But not only does it take a long time to do it, it also has very different tools from what we have, so it can't really do what we would call engineering.

它不仅需要很长时间来完成这个工作，而且所用工具与我们所用工具非常不同，所以它不可能做真正意义上我们称之为工程学的东西。

It hasn't got the right sort of ways to manipulate DNA in the test tube, for example. It's only when one starts to think about how one could approach these questions in a medical way that one starts to be able to see the sorts of avenues that are available to us but aren't available to evolution, and of course it's only when one starts identifying these possible avenues that one can actually evaluate their feasibility and thereby get some sort of estimate of the time-frame in which we might be able to implement them. A dumb person can crack a nut a lot faster than a smart person if the dumb person has a nutcracker and the smart one only has a toothpick.

例如，它还没有获得某种正确类型的方法在试管中操作DNA。只有当一个人想到可以用一种医学的方法来解决这些问题时，一个人才能够看到各条康庄大道：它们准备好为我们而不是为进化服务，当然，只有当一个人开始认同这些可能的康庄大道时，一个人才能够真正评价它们的可行性，并因而获得某种类型时间框架的评价，我们有可能在这个时间框架内实现它们。如果一个哑巴有坚果钳，而一个灵巧的人只有牙签，那么哑巴可以比灵巧人快得多地剥开坚果。

People have always wanted to cure aging, but we only ever make slow progress

人们曾经总是想要治愈老化，但我们总是进展很慢

I've recently written a paper entitled "Extrapolaholics Anonymous" detailing my response to this, which will appear in preprint form on my publications page when it comes out. In brief: one cannot reliably predict the rate of technological progress by extrapolation. In 1900, extrapolation of trends in the speed of ocean-going liners over the previous century or two would have predicted that the time taken to travel from London to Washington D.C. in 2004 would be at least a couple of weeks.

我最近写了一篇文章，题为《无名氏推论学》"Extrapolaholics Anonymous"，详细回答这个问题，写完将以未定稿形式粘贴在我的出版物网页（publications page）上。简单地说，人们不可能以外推法可靠地预言技术进展速度。在1900年，根据前一两个世纪越洋班机速度趋势推论，到2004年从伦敦到华盛顿旅行所需时间至少得两个星期以上。

I happen to be writing this paragraph while in transit on just such a trip, which began three hours ago and will end in four hours. Extrapolation anticipates the rate of technological progress on some occasions, but when it fails to do so it can fail spectacularly. One can more reliably predict the extent of progress in the next 10-20 years (though not more) by examining the tools that are available with which to construct that new technology and how those tools might be so used, which is what I do.

我写这段话时刚好在伦敦-华盛顿班机上，3小时前登机，将在4小时后到达。推论在某些场合能预言技术进步的速度，但当它做不到时，它可能会失败得很惨。人们可以比较可靠地预言下10-20年进步的程度（虽然时间不长），方法是查看借以建造新技术的现有工具，和那些工具可能如何被使用，我就是这样做的。

Aging isn't a disease, so obviously it can't be "cured"

老化不是一种疾病，所以它显然不可能被"治愈"

Call it what you like. Aging is a biological phenomenon that causes debilitation and death. These things are undesirable. Thus, it seems pretty reasonable to me that something which stops getting older from causing debilitation and death can be called a cure for aging.

你喜欢怎么传呼它，就怎么传呼它。老化是一种生物学现象，它引起虚弱和死亡。这些事情很讨厌。因此，它似乎对我来说很合理：停止引起虚弱和死亡的东西，可以被称为治愈老化。

There is a specific sense of the word "cure" for which aging indeed cannot be cured, though, so let me define just what I mean by "cure." What I mean is, to have as much control over it as we have over things like tuberculosis -- diseases that we pretty much know how to stop people dying of -- but not necessarily to do it once and for all.

"治愈"一词有一种特别的意义，在这个意义上老化确实不能被治愈，让我把我所说的"治愈"下一个定义。我的意思是，对它尽可能控制，就像我们对像肺结核等很多疾病一样 – 很多疾病我们知道如何停止人们因它们而死 – 但不一定能一劳永逸地完成。

So I definitely mean not simply stopping its progression, but reversing its progression -- taking someone from a state of advanced suffering from the thing, whether it's something like tuberculosis, or whether it's aging, to a state where they are not suffering from the thing. But consider a disease like herpes, or malaria, or AIDS. At this point the prevailing therapies for these diseases do not actually eliminate the disease-causing agent from the body, they only make it latent so that symptoms are prevented. (With AIDS we can barely do even that so far, of course, but you get the idea.)

所以，我明确地说，不仅停止它的进展，而且逆转它的进展 – 从不断遭受某事的状态，不管它是像肺结核的某事，也不管是老化，把它们拉到不遭受这种事的状态。但是，请考虑一种疾病，像疱疹、或疟疾、或艾滋。在这一点上，这些疾病的主要疗法并不实际上从身体排除引起疾病的因素，它们只使它潜伏，防止出现症状。（当然，就艾滋病而言，迄今我们所能做的就是这个，但是，你已了解了这想法。）

With such diseases, one can have a recurrence of the symptoms without actual re-infection -- just by stopping taking the treatment. So it is with aging: treatment will have to be periodic, for however long one lives.

这样的疾病，一个人可以有症状的重新出现，但没有实际的重新传染 – 如果停止治疗。所以，对于老化的情形是：治疗将必须是周期性的，不管你活多长。

Why don't your senior colleagues echo your optimism about timescales?

为什么你的前辈同事没有回响你的关于时间尺度的乐观主义？

I sometimes call this one "The curious case of the catatonic biogerontologists"...

The SENS strategy as described here purports to have all the characteristics that should make it persuasive: it's detailed, it's thorough and it's all firmly based on established experimental work in the various relevant areas of biology. So, you may well ask, where's the catch? Why, on all the many documentaries on aging that remain so popular, don't my colleagues come out and advocate the work that I advocate?

我有时称之为"紧张性精神症生物老年学家疑难案例"…

SENS战略如这里所说的，它旨在要有应当使它具有说服力的所有特征：它是详细的、它是完整的、它完全基于各有关生物学领域已确立的实验工作。所以，你可能问得好：这种想法从何而来？仍然为人所熟知的所有关于老化的许多文件中，我的同事们为什么不站出来提倡我所提倡的工作？

There are three main reasons why most mainstream gerontologists remain so conspicuously absent from the growing band of vocal advocates of the SENS approach to curing aging. They are all understandable, but given the importance of the problem and the key role that senior specialists play in determining public opinion and hence public policy, I feel that none of them is a legitimate excuse.

为什么大多数老年学家仍然无动于衷于大力提倡治愈老化的SENS途径，这有三个理由。它们都是可以理解的，但倘若问题重大，前辈专家在决定公众意见、因此也决定公众政策中所起的关键作用，我感到三条理由中没有一条是合理的借口。

The central reason is simple ignorance of the relevant science. Biology -- even human biology -- is a very big subject, so nobody can hope to understand it all in depth. Thus, biologists restrict themselves to understanding in depth a rather narrow subset of biology and they trust each other to focus on the other areas.

中心问题是对有关科学的无知。生物学 – 即使是人类生物学 – 是一个大课题，所以，没有人有希望深刻了解它的全部。这样，生物学家只能在相当窄的小领域内有深刻了解，而关注到其它领域时则彼此相信。

Unfortunately, this strategy relies utterly on having a good instinct for when an area not hitherto perceived as relevant to one's own area has become so as a result of a new piece of work. Most of the areas that I have introduced into the biology of aging have so far received only limited attention because most biogerontologists don't instinctively see how they could be useful.

不幸的是，这个战略完全有赖于有一个好的直觉，当一个小领域不被认为与自己的小领域有关时，这个小领域就成为新构件。我曾经引入老化生物学的大部分小领域，迄今只得到很有限的关注，因为大部分生物老年学家并没有直觉地看到它们是如何地有用。

The second reason is really subsidiary to the first, in that its importance is in sustaining the ignorance I just referred to. The progress of ideas always has enormous inertia, on account of the emotional, intellectual and financial investment that those who hold conventional views have made in those views. Scientists, like others, find it difficult to write off that investment and embrace a new paradigm even when the argument for that new paradigm is very comprehensive.

第二个理由完全从属于第一个理由，这其中它的重要性在于维持无知（我刚指出过的）。观念的进步总是有巨大的惯性，这是由于感情的、智力的和财政的投资是由具有传统观点的那些人以那些观点做出的。科学家像其他人一样，发现很难勾销那种投资，而去拥抱一种新的模式，即使新的模式被阐述得非常全面。

This manifests as a reluctance to consult relevant literature, for example, or even to entertain the idea that such literature is relevant in the first place. It also manifests as a preference for avoiding overt debate on such matters, since any such debate opens up the risk of being forced to acknowledge the superiority of the new paradigm.

例如，这表现为不愿查询有关的文献，或甚至不愿接受这样的文献首先是有关的想法。它也表现为喜欢避免在这样的事情上公开辩论，因为任何这样的辩论都会冒被迫承认新模式优越性的风险。

None of this is conscious, but it is an indescribably powerful force against progress. In this case, the idea that reversing aging might be easier than slowing it down a bit is so counter-intuitive that many of my colleagues are inclined to dismiss it out of hand before taking the time to look at my argument in detail.

这其中没有一个是有意识的，但它反对进步的力量却大得无可名状。在这个例子中，逆转老化可能要比减缓老化容易一些，这样的构想是如此地反直觉，以至于我的很多同行倾向于在花时间仔细瞧瞧我的辩论之前，就把它束之高阁。

The third reason my colleagues mostly don't say what I say is political. Scientists prefer to promote and discuss what they're working on. They aren't so keen to tell people that they would be working on something altogether more interesting or ambitious if only their funders had the imagination and courage to fund it, because that's a quick way to lose funding even for unambitious work.

我的同事们大多数不说我说的第三个理由是政治性的。科学家喜欢吹嘘和讨论他们正在研究的事情。他们不那么热衷于告诉人们，他们还有更有意义、更有雄心壮志的项目可以研究，那么他们的基金评委们可能会有想象力和勇气去发现它，那是失去资助不那么有雄心壮志的研究的一条快速途径。

Now, you might ask, why are funders so unambitious? In industry it's because of short-termism, of course: firms that can make money quickly and certainly with boring products will do so in preference to making money far in the future and with much less certainty with ambitious products, even if the amount of money on offer in the latter case is far bigger.

现在，你可能问：基金的评委们为什么那么没有雄心壮志？当然，在产业界，因为有短期主义：可以用厌烦的产品快速赚钱的公司，它们将优先只顾眼前，不大可能使用有雄心壮志的、很久以后才会赚钱的产品，即使在后一场合所赚的钱要大量得多。

In the public sector, the main reason is that funders don't want to be thought to be wasting tax-payers' money on blue-sky work with no chance of success. So, the ultimate problem is the pessimism of voters. But, of course, that pessimism is due precisely to what senior biogerontologists say and don't say on the television... This "triangular log-jam" (see below) is the fundamental problem with getting more money into life extension research. The strange arrows with flat heads are a notation used in genetics; they mean "inhibits".

在公众部门，主要理由是，基金的评委们不想被认为因没有成功机会而正在不保险的研究工作上浪费纳税人的钱。所以，根本的问题是投票人的悲观主义。但是，悲观主义当然正是由于前辈生物老年学家在电视里说什么或不说什么…这种"三角僵局"（见下）是获得较多钱用于生命扩展研究的根本问题所在。具有扁平头部的奇怪的箭头是遗传学中所用的符号；它们意味着"抑制"。

It can be unblocked at any corner, of course. My work is focused on the "biogerontologists" corner because I know them all personally and because they are few in number. The quickest way to change the minds of scientists regarding research priorities, however, is to remember that scientists will do anything interesting for food. Hence, an alternative supply of funds is a solution:

当然，可以在任何一角开锁。我的工作集中在"生物老年学家"这一角，因为他们我个人全都认识，也因为他们人数很少。然而，关于研究优先权，要改变科学家的想法的最快方法，是要记住，科学家会为食物而做任何有趣的事情。因此，设立另一项基金是一种解决方案：

Finally, both the scientists and the prospective philanthropists may be encouraged to take the plunge if a bit of publicity comes their way:

最后，如果做事有一点公开性，科学家和预期的慈善家都有可能被鼓励去冒险尝试；



and this is one motivation for the Methuselah Mouse Prize.

这是长寿鼠奖“Methuselah Mouse Prize”的一个动机。

In conclusion I should stress that many of my colleagues, on reading or hearing the castigation of them that I have rehearsed above, would say that in fact there is a wholly responsible reason why they are cautious in their public predictions of the rate of progress: namely, they think it would be irresponsible to engender unwarranted optimism. My answer is that experts can mislead the public just as powerfully by silence as by speaking out, if the public are predisposed to be pessimistic on the scientific issue in question, as they certainly are in this case. I therefore claim that biogerontology is a case where the general rule of not getting people's hopes up unduly is being taken too far. I have said so in print here.

总之，我要强调，我的很多同事们在读到或听到我在上述再三的批评时，他们将会说：事实上，他们在公开场合小心谨慎地预言进步速率完全是为了负责任，就是说，他们认为造成毫无根据的乐观主义是不负责任的。我的回答是：如果公众对有疑问的科学课题本来就悲观（他们在这个场合肯定就是这样），那么专家们保持沉默与大声说成来一样都是强烈地误导公众。因此我认为：生物老年学家就是一个例子 — 不唤起人们希望的这条规矩沿用太久了。我已经这样说，见在这里（here）。