Tabooing words is a tool, not a mandatory exercise. They weren’t relying on the word “unscientifically” to do the work for them.
For example, here is the first instance of the word I spotted upon looking at the article again:
de Grey also casually rules out the contributions of non-oncogenic epimutation to aging through “guilt by association” misrepresentation. He groups together nDNA mutation and epimutation, provides grossly insufficient evidence to rule out nDNA mutation as important in aging, and then declares epimutation is ruled out as well without providing any supporting evidence [8, 35]. There is no logical or mechanistic reason for this. In fact, references are available that suggest that epimutation might be common and problematic with advancing age, possibly even more so than nDNA mutation (for example see [36-38]). Furthermore, other known molecular pathologies, such as unrepaired DNA damage in post-mitotic tissues, as well as largely uncharacterized and undiscovered damage and pathologies, are dismissed altogether as contributing to aging (for one example, see [39]). This is baseless and unscientific conjecture.
It seems clear that they’re not relying on the word in an inappropriate way. Tabooing is useful sometimes, but requiring others to taboo any subject of conversation is not productive and adds an unnecessary mechanism for biases to influence us.
simplified; diffuse and undiscovered damage/pathologies excluded as causes of aging without compelling evidence
This seems bad to me and unscientific sounds like a fair label for such practices. I don’t know why you disagree.
Unscientifically claimed to be curable to some degree by specific therapies
Admittedly this usage is confusing. But judging from the arguments made elsewhere in the paper, they seem to be saying there’s no good evidence suggesting these specific therapies will work. A lot of what he does seems to be highly speculative. Calling speculation unscientific seems fair to me, science is about going out and looking at the world, then creating ideas in response to what you observe.
Tabooing words is a tool, not a mandatory exercise. They weren’t relying on the word “unscientifically” to do the work for them.
For example, here is the first instance of the word I spotted upon looking at the article again:
It seems clear that they’re not relying on the word in an inappropriate way. Tabooing is useful sometimes, but requiring others to taboo any subject of conversation is not productive and adds an unnecessary mechanism for biases to influence us.
The particular use you quote looks justified. I was referring to this, from earlier:
where it looked like anything they didn’t like could be included under the unscientific category.
This seems bad to me and unscientific sounds like a fair label for such practices. I don’t know why you disagree.
Admittedly this usage is confusing. But judging from the arguments made elsewhere in the paper, they seem to be saying there’s no good evidence suggesting these specific therapies will work. A lot of what he does seems to be highly speculative. Calling speculation unscientific seems fair to me, science is about going out and looking at the world, then creating ideas in response to what you observe.