Says Peter Thiel, co-founder and former CEO of PayPal:

"A lot of people who are not conventional are not serious. But the real breakthroughs in science are made by serious thinkers who are willing to work on research areas that people think are too controversial or too implausible."

Meet Aubrey de Grey:

"I was appalled. Utterly appalled. I began to realize the profound difference of motivation and mind-set between scientists on the one hand and technologists and engineers on the other hand."

de Gray is the founder of The Methuselah Foundation and author of Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime.

He says:

Try something and if it doesn't work, try something else. Science doesn't pave the way for engineering, it's the other way around.

... bringing pragmatism to biology ...

With adequate funding, de Grey thinks scientists may, within a decade, triple the remaining life span of late-middle-age mice. The day this announcement is made, he believes, the news will hit people like a brick as they realize that their cells could be next. He speculates people will start abandoning risky jobs, such as being police officers, or soldiers.

When he talks about people soon putting a higher premium on health than wealth, he twirls the ends of his mustache back behind his ears, murmuring, "So many women, so much time."

See also, Our Biotech Future, by Freeman Dyson. And recall Eric Schmidt:

Failure is an essential part of the process. "The way you say this is: 'Please fail very quickly -- so that you can try again'."

Finally, check out Tom Friedman:

The technologies we need ... are already here. The only thing we have a shortage of now are leaders with the imagination and will ...