1. IS MORE LIFE ALWAYS BETTER ?
BY DAVID GEMS
Presented By
Sidar Tekdemir
Ahmet Ozan Oğuz

2. OUTLINE
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The New Biology of Aging
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Why Biologist Are Cagey
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Worrying About Living Longer
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The Political value of Aging
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Pessimisim and the Repeatibility of Experience
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Aging and Rigidity of Identify
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Life Plans and Expectation of Future

3. The social consequences of extending the human life span might be quite bad; perhaps the worst
outcome is that power could be concentrated into every few hands, as those who wield it gave way
more slowly to death and disease. But the worry that more life would damage individuals' quality of life
is not persuasive. Depending on what the science of aging makes possible, and on how people plan
their lives, longer life might even facilitate a richer and deeper life.

5. THE NEW BIOLOGY OF AGING
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Andrzej Bartke (American Biologist)
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He showed that a genetic combination of genetic alteration and nutritional restruction can increase
lifespan of laborotary mouse around 70 percent.
Specific genses control the lifespan.(daf-2, nematode)
Elie Metchnikoff (Russian Immunologist)
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J.B.S. Haldane (British Geneticist)
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Aging resulted from toxins relased by bacteria.
Yoghut diet may extend human life about 200 years.
Reduction in the level of secretions from the testicles.(testicles implantation from a goat or monkey)
Huntington Disease which attacks nervous system and cause insanity and death
Strike later in life
Genetic disseases caused by genetic mutations that naturel selection has been unable to purge from the
population.(Heart of the evolutionary theory of aging)
The Writer Argument
C. Elegans worms
 If we can control aging gene in the C. Elegans we can identify the gene controlling in human aging.
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Thomas Johnson (University of Colorado)
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Specific mutationed gene age-1, increased avarage lifepan in C.elegans by 65 percent.
More lifepan genes not only in worms but also in fruit flies and mice.

7. WHY BIOLOGIST ARE CAGEY
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Biologist are strangely reluctant to advocate the extention of human life.
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Health care costs are increasing with old population
BBSRC
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Understanding of basic biology of of healthy ageing.
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Experimental Research of Ageing (ERA)
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New treatments that could reduce age related decline and thus increase ‘healthspan’ and improve
quality of life for the elderly.
All the effords and investments are spended for solving advanced age problems such as cancer or
heart disseases.

9. WORRYING ABOUT LIVING LONGER
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Huge overpopulation
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Noone against decreasing infant mortality
Morbid phase of of ourlives
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Psycological problems because of more lifespan
 Myth of Tithonus of Troy
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Solutions with medicine and drugs
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Distributive Justice
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Rich people can acces the treatments what would other do?
Life extension technology might be considered a fundemental human right, like
education right.
Such technology should be made available to all- even murderers?

11. Myth of Tithonus of Troy

12. THE POLITICAL VALUE OF AGING
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Historically, a great benefit of aging has been
deliverance from tyranny.
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Consider the possibility of a global dictatorship with
a non-aging president.

14. PESSIMISIM AND THE REPEATIBILITY OF
EXPERIENCE
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Once the goal is reached, however, after the first flush of
triumph has passed away, there follows inevitably a
mood of desolation
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What is immortality to Sisyphus but the cruelest element
of his punishment? Yet really this is an unrealistically
gloomy assessment of the character of goals and desires
and their place among the things that make life engaging.

16. AGING AND RIGIDITY OF IDENTIFY
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If a prerequisite for enjoying a greatly extended life
is the capacity to change and develop oneself, find
new interests, and develop new ambitions and
desires, then the loss of flexibility with age limits the
value of life extension

18. LIFE PLANS AND EXPECTATION OF FUTURE
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They would then die suddenly, typically in their
eighth or ninth decade. Furthermore, death would
be painless, not involving illness or disease—a
sudden loss of consciousness, preceded optionally
for a few days or weeks by some form of painless,
unambiguous indicator of impending death to allow
time for goodbyes.
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If life plans involve a framework within which our
actions have meaning and are of a traditional
length, then life extension might appear
superfluous.

19. 
Is More Life Always Better?: The New Biology of
Aging and the Meaning of Life

David Gems
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Article first published online: 6 MAR 2012
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DOI: 10.2307/3528378

20. 
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2012- Professor of Biogerontology, Institute of Healthy Ageing,
UCL
2005-2011 Reader in the Biology of Ageing, Department of
Biology, UCL
1997-2004 Royal Society University Research Fellow,
Department of Biology, University College London, U.K.
Genetics of aging in C. elegans and other model organisms
1993-1996 Postdoctoral fellow, Molecular Biology Program,
University of Missouri, with Prof. Don Riddle. Genetics of
aging inCaenorhabditis elegans
1991-1993 Postdoc, Department of Biology, Imperial College,
London, with Prof. Rick Maizels. Biology of infective larvae of
the ascarid nematode parasite Toxocara canis
1987-1990 Ph.D., Institute of Genetics, University of Glasgow,
U.K. Aspergillus nidulans genetics. With A.J. Clutterbuck
1984-1986 Various work in Costa Rica, Nicaragua (Sandinista
regime), Mexico, USA
1980-1983 School of Biological Sciences, University of
Sussex, U.K. B.Sc. Biochemistry
1974-1978 Dartington Hall School