3.27.2002

Some interesting blog comments re: the difference between a supposed "quest for immortality" and the real pursuits of modern bioscience:

CharlesMurtaugh.blogspot.com

In fact, my suspicion is that none of the gains in human lifespan over the past two centuries have even the slightest recognizable relationship to a quest for immortality. Instead, each incremental gain was won against the absurd tragedies that beset our forebears: cholera, smallpox, polio, malnutrition. I can't speak for all biomedical researchers, but I know that in moments of immodesty, I can see myself in a line of descent that includes Jenner, Pasteur and Salk: scientists who knew how to recognize suffering when they saw it, and how to distinguish it from something "natural" and good.

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