On Posting Scientific Content
I post on the details of aging biochemistry and research papers much more than I used to in past years. This is a consequence of my own process of educating myself about the biology, biotechnology, and weight of evidence underpinning the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, calorie restriction, and what I'll call the Longevity Dividend viewpoint of working to slow aging through metabolic manipulation.
If it makes some eyes glaze, so be it. This is important. I do try to structure things in an educational fashion, but the further one goes into the jungle, the harder it becomes to recall how to present this information to the layman. (Assuming the layman is interested, which most casual visitors are not in this day and age - we live in the era of tl;dr).
As a general rule, I usually prefer to learn more about a topic rather than take someone else's word for it - and if I'm advocating something, how could I expect to be taken seriously unless I have at least a basic grounding in what I'm talking about? When I castigate metabolic manipulation as a path forward, I do so having looked at a great deal of research and basic biology to form my views. Does that effort make me right? No, but it does at least increase my chances of being so, and my chances of avoiding elementary errors.
Sadly, most people won't take the time to learn about their biochemistry until it runs awry and starts killing them - which is too late for the most effective presently available strategies of prevention. There are many fields and personal situations in which it makes perfect economic sense to be ignorant - to rely on experts and focus your attentions elsewhere. Maintenance of cars, for example. That said, I think that a knowledge of the workings of the body is not something you can afford to leave entirely to others. If you don't have a basic grasp on how your metabolism runs and what the present scientific thinking is on regions of importance, how can you evaluate new advances or health strategies? How do you distinguish between serious research, outright fraud, and earnestly held but outdated and wrong viewpoints? Ignorance is vulnerability, and the cost of that is measured in ill health and lost years.