From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Fri Sep 20 2002 - 10:35:42 MDT
Driven FromThePack forwarded:
>From: "Steve Harris" COMMENT:
>As was the idea of manned heavier-than-air flight, heart transplant,
>artificial hearts, laser weapons, space travel, cloning of mammals, and so
>on. Once upon a time, they were all "science fiction." No longer. There's
>nothing "pseudo-scientific" about speculating about advances in science in
>the future, and planning for them. For example, DNA samples from endangered
>species are now being preserved, in hopes that we will later be able to
>clone them, even though we're nowhere near being able to do so now, in many
>cases.
This misses the point, but is a good example. IMO there is nothing wrong
with the concept of cryopreservation, only with the current techniques.
Like the early flight attempts, as far as human preservation is concerned,
we're still running downhill flapping canvas wings with our arms.
DNA cryopreservation is not pseudoscience. We have a lot of evidence that
modern techniques allow us to preserve DNA for a long time, so it's
scientific to use those techniques to preserve DNA. OTOH we have evidence
that those techniques destroy brains, so it's unscientific to use them to
preserve brains.
The issue here is not why people want to preserve things. Science is not
worried about the goals -- whether it's for sentimental reasons, money or
hoping for future advances, the only important question is "does the
technique work?". For DNA it does. For brains it doesn't; we need a better one.
[...]
>The question before us is not whether 9 out of 10 doctors recommend
>it, but whether or not it is foolish.
Again, close but no cigar. The problem is that current techniques are too
destructive and there is no evidence that you are really preserving what
you need. We know that the DNA gets preserved, but we have no idea if
enough of the brain is.
>However, cryonicists are not spending government money, but instead are
>paying for their own medical experiment.
They are raising money by selling people a service they claim *preserves*
their brains, but no evidence supports this claim. At the moment we have no
idea if the brain is preserved or destroyed, because we don't know if that
damage can ever be repaired. This is unscientific quackery.
Note that a service for cryo-storage of DNA would be different. We have
evidence that DNA can be stored in this way, so that would be scientific.
The same goes for zygotes, sperm, ova, etc...
>If it's folly, this author wants to know first why anyone couldn't PAY Dr.
>Osterhout to do it? This makes no sense. She could use the money to go to
>movies, or donate it to the poor. If cryonics is not going to work, what is
>she scared of?
I would be scared of the slight chance that, in the rush to get my corpse
frozen as rapidly as possible, someone would misdiagnose my death (it
happens sometimes) and the procedure ended up killing me.
>"It's such folly at this point in time..." ?? What if it doesn't turn out to
>be folly, in the future, Dr. Osterhout? How are you planning to apologize,
>given the consequences?
Apologize? As soon as some technique can store brains without damaging
them, I'll accept and perhaps even pay for this procedure. But scientists
don't have to apologize for being skeptical of unfounded claims. In fact,
that's part of what scientists are paid to do.
>This author would like to know what physical laws Dr. Goodman thinks would be >violated by a success in cryonics.
None, and I also expect that in the future some technique will be developed
that can be used to store human brains. But flapping canvas wings won't cut
it, and we're still some way from freezing large, complex organs without
messing them up.
Ludwig Krippahl
--
Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@mindspring.com >
Alternate: < terry_colvin@hotmail.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
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