In February, I blogged about Aubrey de Grey, the Brit who thinks science may help us live far longer than we do today.

Other scientists, it turns out, are bothered by de Grey. Gee, what a surprise. It’s another example of how the scientific community, when confronted with new ideas, reacts emotionally instead of rationally — which is not only unseemly, but also a breach of public trust.

The issue in question doesn’t have to be earth-shattering, even — as I posted here, when George Brooks figured out that lactic acid doesn’t cause post-exercise muscle soreness, he was harassed for thirty years: he had trouble getting grants funded or papers published. Over lactic acid. C’mon, guys, RELAX.

In de Grey’s case, the scrapping took an interesting twist last year when Technology Review and de Grey’s charitable foundation, the Methuselah Foundation, put together a $20,000 prize for anyone who could prove that de Grey’s anti-aging prescription was “so wrong that it was unworthy of learned debate.”

Nobody was able to claim the prize, although Technology Review‘s admission of that point is a bit mealy-mouthed:

In the end, the judges felt that no submission met the criterion of the challenge and disproved SENS, although they unanimously agreed that one submission, by Preston W. Estep and his colleagues, was the most eloquent. The judges also noted, however, that de Grey had not convincingly defended SENS and that many of his ideas seemed somewhat fanciful.

LOL

Translation: “nobody came close, but how BEAUTIFULLY written their failed arguments were!!!! And even if they lost, de Grey didn’t win either, so nyah nyah nyah!!!”

Me, I’m not so sure I’d want to live 1000 years, although I’m hoping to beat the actuary tables. OTOH, scientists need to welcome — not just tolerate, but welcome — odd ideas and challenges to their thinking.

Because as I noted in my post about Brooks, the public is poorly served when scientists care more about preserving the status quo than, well, science.