Comment by garply | Hacker News Reader

Comment by garply | Hacker News Reader

Nitpick:

"Dreams of eternal youth feature in many cultures throughout history, but it was only in the 20th century that research into longevity really began."

I seem to recall learning about ancient Chinese emperors entertaining Daoist 'priests' who offered them elixirs designed to extend their lifespans, sometimes indefinitely. If by "research" they mean "contemporary scientific research," their statement is a tautology.

Update:

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_alchemy

"Chinese alchemy is a part of the larger tradition of Taoism (although some argue it has longer history than Taoism), centers on the tradition of body-spirit cultivation that developed through the Chinese understandings of medicine and the body. These Chinese traditions were developed into a system of energy practices. Chinese alchemy focuses mainly on the purification of one's spirit and body in the hopes of gaining immortality through the practice of Qigong and/or consumption and use of various concoctions known as alchemical medicines or elixirs, each of which having different purposes."

Just because their research didn't lead to correct conclusions doesn't mean it wasn't research.

If by "research" they mean "contemporary scientific research," their statement is a tautology.

How so? Scientific research on many subjects dates back to the ~17th century or so, so I'm not sure how it's a tautology to say that scientific research on a particular subject didn't begin until the 20th.

Unless you mean that the "contemporary" bit is a tautology, but you just inserted that word yourself.

Just because their research didn't lead to correct conclusions doesn't mean it wasn't research

But what if it didn't use the correct methods? I think it's fair to restrict the definition of "research" to methods which are likely to lead you towards the right answer rather than the much older method of "just making shit up".

My point was that "research" dates back well before the 17th century. If you insist upon research meaning "scientific research" the scientific method goes back to at least Aristotle. Scientific standards were different at different points in time - you appear to have drawn the line at the 17th century.

But I believe the alchemists who were working on elixirs for eternal life both in the Western world and in ancient China (pre-Aristotle) were performing a type of research as well in that they presumably used some sort of trial and error to determine the efficacy of their elixirs and modified their behavior based on the results. That is, I do not believe that they would continue to repeatedly administer an elixir that caused immediate death in the unshaken belief that it was truly an elixir for immortality. Such a process of trial and error constitutes "research" in my opinion, although it would have been primitive research by our standards.

> I think it's fair to restrict the definition of "research" to methods which are likely to lead you towards the right answer rather than the much older method of "just making shit up".

It depends on how strict you are with the meaning of the word "research".

Stone Age people, by that token, were just "making shit up", but that didn't prevent them from discovering fire, etc.

The alchemists were simply using the best tools available to them. Primitive, from our perspective? Yes. That doesn't mean there wasn't genuine effort involved.

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