quotations

“Life is a collection of kludges taped together by chance and filtered by selection for functionality; it all works magnificently well, but if one looks under the hood, one is simultaneously appalled by inelegance and impressed with the accumulation of needless complexity… The complexity of developmental regulation isn’t a product of design at all; indeed, it’s the antithesis of what human designers would consider good planning or an elegant design. On the other hand, it is exactly what one would expect as a result of cobbling together fortuitous accidents, stringing together helpful scraps into an outcome that may not be pretty, but works. That’s all evolution needs from developmental processes: something that works well enough, no matter how awkward or needlessly complex it may seem.” [1] – P. Z. Meyers [A former computer software developer who switched to Drosophila embryology.] (As posted by L. Stephen Coles, M.D., Ph.D., Co-Founder, Los Angeles Gerontology Research Group.

“The difficult political climate for a major [life extension research] branch within the NIA [National Institute on Aging] is reflected by recent email correspondence with Huber Warner, Associate Director of NIA’s Biology of Aging Program, in which Warner wrote, ‘our NIA Director does not look forward to having congressmen ask him during testimony sessions about whether our goal is to extend the human life span.’” Mackey T, Rejuvenation Research 7:211. - Aubrey de Grey (ppt).

“The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself … We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but trans-cending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature.” - Sir Julian Huxley, 1957.

“Start with the goals, look over your options, evaluate the options, take the best one; don’t try to rationalize it afterward. That’s another one of the major rationality skills; maybe even the rationality skill. Intelligence, to be useful, must be used for something other than defeating itself.”
- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, “Exploring Life Extension,” Immortality Institute.