I don't think his goal is to solve the scientific problems surrounding aging, so his science doesn't matter that much to me. Everything he does seems to be an

I don't think his goal is to solve the scientific problems surrounding aging, so his science doesn't matter that much to me. Everything he does seems to be an effort to increase awareness and generate interest in a subject (reversing the effects of aging), that shockingly few people think is remotely realistic. In my mind, he views himself as the heretic leading the charge against the established views of the rest of the world (that age related death is a necessary thing). And, THAT is what Peter Thiel is investing in, because getting people to start caring about the problem is the first step to solving it. The organizers of the X-Prize didn't build rockets - they setup a prize that motivated other people to build them. And, thus he's created the Methuselah Mouse prize to try to fund a similar distributed effort. Calling him a quack is inaccurate, regardless of if it's true or not. He's not a scientist. Instead, he's an entrepreneurial spirit who's trying to motivate people to believe that we can change the world in completely new and powerful ways. Just like we always have.