Consistency – “The hobgoblin of small minds?”

Posted on 23. February 2009 by Vince Giuliano

A recently reported research study seems to throw the whole the the oxidative damage theory of aging into question, at least for C. elegans, a nematode roundworm.  The researchers created a mutant species by individually knocking out five genes in these worms that confer a natural antioxidative effect, e.g. the production of SOD a detoxifying enzyme.  The worms lived just as long despite the compromise in their ability to handle oxidative damage.  And when one of the genes was knocked out the worms lived actually longer, probably due to alteration of mitochondrial function. Does this kill the venerable Oxidative damage aging theory, the granddaddy of all the aging theories?  Should we stop taking oxidants? Not at all.  There is too much evidence behind that theory and over the years it has provided too useful a model for many aging phenomena.  And the beneficial effects of taking antioxidants are well established.

Longevity is not the only area of science where it is useful to keep multiple theories alive despite the fact that they are sometimes inconsistent with evidence and with each other. The prime example is relativity theory and quantum theory in physics, both of which have enabled enormous strides in physics, engineering, astronomy and technology for over a century now.  These two theories have never been reconciled despite prodigious mathematical efforts to do so.  In an interesting article in The March 2009 Scientific American, A Quantum Threat to Special Relativity, it is argued that the quantum theory and special relativity theory are in fact incompatible and contradictory at the most basic level.  No way either of these theories will be thrown out however – not until a more comprehensive theory comes along that subsumes it.  The theories are just too useful.  I think the same is true with theories of aging – all 14 theories covered in my Anti-Aging Firewalls treatise.  It will be incredible, in fact, if we can manage to get those theories down to two or three more basic ones.

About Vince Giuliano

Being a follower, connoisseur, and interpreter of longevity research is my latest career. I have been at this part-time for well over a decade, and in 2007 this became my mainline activity. In earlier reincarnations of my career. I was founding dean of a graduate school and a university professor at the State University of New York, a senior consultant working in a variety of fields at Arthur D. Little, Inc., Chief Scientist and C00 of Mirror Systems, a software company, and an international Internet consultant. I got off the ground with one of the earliest PhD's from Harvard in a field later to become known as computer science. Because there was no academic field of computer science at the time, to get through I had to qualify myself in hard sciences, so my studies focused heavily on quantum physics. In various ways I contributed to the Computer Revolution starting in the 1950s and the Internet Revolution starting in the late 1980s. I am now engaged in doing the same for The Longevity Revolution. I have published something like 200 books and papers as well as over 430 substantive.entries in this blog, and have enjoyed various periods of notoriety. If you do a Google search on Vincent E. Giuliano, most if not all of the entries on the first few pages that come up will be ones relating to me. I have a general writings site at www.vincegiuliano.com and an extensive site of my art at www.giulianoart.com. Please note that I have recently changed my mailbox to vegiuliano@agingsciences.com.
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