New blog post: An open letter to scientific critics of cryonics

[ciphergoth]

An open letter to scientific critics of cryonics

If this isn't to your tastes, don't worry, no doubt I'll be obsessing over something else soon enough :-)

Comments

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

People seemed to agree in this disucssion that in order to tell a reasonable guess about what future technology might bring from an unreasonable guess, you have to get down to the technical nitty-gritty. So in this instance, that would involve replying to the specifics that cryonicists do provide about possible future reanimation technology, and pointing out where the biggest gaps are. See the "then a miracle occurs" section of my post.

[reddragdiva]

I think the Ouroboros post does that pretty well.

Although it isn't directly about the science, the bit where a cryonicist threatened the Society for Cryobiology with a lawsuit over their proposed condemnation speaks volumes. Because suing scientists for speaking out against your science is really convincing evidence ... that you're a pseudoscientist.

Then there's the debate between Ben Best and CSICOP skeptics, where Mr Best repeatedly compares being called on his unsupported claims of success rates to accusations of rape and child molestation o_0 And he proudly puts this up on his website!

If they're not pseudoscientists, they're doing a damn good imitation.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

There's plenty more where that came from, I assure you - things like renaming yourself FM-2030 in honour of the year when you expect to be reanimated.

On the other hand they were pretty much in the process of describing a business that Darwin was at the head of as actually fraudulent, and I think quite a few business would threaten to sue under those circumstances, though I don't generally think they should.

It's not clear how to work out
P(cryonics advocates behave crazily|reanimation will happen in the future)/P(cryonics advocates behave crazily|reanimation will not happen in the future) though...

[reddragdiva]

Acting like a pseudoscientist is not a scientific measure. But it sure doesn't do you any favours and is a strong indicator there's woo going on here.

(Isaac Newton was famously a complete fucking arsehole, but he was clear on how science applied to his physics. Despite his fondness for astrology.)

In this discussion, I think it's useful to distinguish the statement "some sort of cryonic suspension and revival may be possible with as yet unrealised future technologies" from "what the cryonics industry does right now does any good at all." The pro-cryonics folk tend to hear the second and answer the first. They are not the same.

In researching stuff for the RationalWiki article, I looked around for any scientific evidence that what the cryonics industry does is more than a plausible hypothesis, and does any better at information preservation than mummification did. I found none. Is there any at all?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Since you're editing the RationalWiki entry about this I'm guessing you've already read Ben Best's Scientific Justification of Cryonics Practice. However, you might also find Bostrom and Sandberg's Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap useful. Note that djm4 has has some commentary on the latter.

[reddragdiva]

Ben Best's article provides lots of "and then a miracle occurs" in all sections, even in the bit where he's listing scientific findings that support his work not being futile. I'd missed the one about the rat hippocampus, actually. I might try to track down the actual paper on that one and see if I know someone who knows someone who can criticise it sensibly (c.f. djm4's beautiful phrase "green ink PDF").

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

A criticism of that document that met my "ideal points" would be far and away the best anti-cryonics article ever written, so I hope you're able to pursue it.

[reddragdiva]

After seeing his ludicrous spin on the hippocampus study, I'm inclined to say "wtf" and dismiss him as a pseudoscientist.

Is that document particularly important to cryonics fans? Do they set sufficient store by it that it's actually worth the effort of demolishing?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think so. Best is CEO of the Cryonics Institute, and as I keep saying, no-one has ever done anything like this before. Well, not as a standalone article anyway - there's lots of stuff hidden in blog comments but that's much less useful.

[reddragdiva]

Looks like Ben Best was talking bollocks in citing that hippocampus study - here's the abstract. Note the gulf between what Best says it says and what it actually says. That's another pseudoscience alert.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Please write this up as a standalone article or blog post somewhere. You don't have to cover every point in the paper - if my survey is representative, then finding and documenting one flaw in that paper will represent the best ever article on the subject.

[reddragdiva]

I'm trying to bring the RationalWiki article to something like that condition. I'd quite like to bring it to front-page-feature status.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

If you really want to convince cryonics advocates, you're probably better off holding back on the snark at least some - I enjoy a bit of snark with the best of them when I agree with the snarkers, but I try to avoid it when I'm trying to convince.

[reddragdiva]

I think they're well beyond convincing. It's actually pretty light on the snark for RW ;-)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

You're right, I should rephrase. If you really want to convince those who are in the borderlands of convinceability, holding back on the snark will probably help.

And you shouldn't underestimate how wide those borders will be - remember, no-one will ever have seen a rebuttal of cryonics like this before.

[reddragdiva]

True. Letting the facts speak for themselves is always more elegant ;-)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

BTW you should probably know that Greg Fahy and Yuri Pichugin have both worked for cryonics organisations. It would be a mistake to dismiss their work on those grounds but it would be lax of me not to bring that to your attention.

[reddragdiva]

Yeah, though they got the paper into Cryobiology, so I assumed it wouldn't be green ink. At least some of the cryonicists acknowledge that they will need to do the brick-by-brick to build foundations under the castle in the air.

I dunno, I'm not a neuroscientist of any kind. You look at Best's paper and what the abstract says and you see how you think they compare.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Best says:

A study on rat hippocampal slices showed that it is possible for vitrified slices cooled to a solid state at -130C to have viability upon re-warming comparable to that of control
slices that had not been vitrified or cryopreserved. Ultrastructure of the CA1 region (the
region of the brain most vulnerable to ischemic damage) of the re-warmed slices is seen
to be quite well preserved compared to the ultrastructure of control CA1 tissue.

Is your point that while the second sentence is supported by the paper, the inference of "viability" is not?

[reddragdiva]

Somewhat. The original paper said "it looks well preserved" and Best said "it is seen to be quite well preserved." "looks" and "is" are a bit different.

He also said they worked when put back. This is complete and utter bollocks.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I missed that, where does he say that?

[reddragdiva]

Sorry, looks like I misinterpreted the word "viability":

"A study on rat hippocampal slices showed that it is possible for vitrified slices cooled to a solid state at -130oC to have viability upon re-warming comparable to that of control slices that had not been vitrified or cryopreserved."

Note, nevertheless, that he makes a remarkable claim (that it is possible to have viability) based on some statements in the original paper based only on appearance.

(This is why I want people going over this on a wiki.)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I think you need to have more expertise than either of us have to know whether that is a huge inferential gap or needless hair-splitting.

I don't think you took the care that would be called for before confidently accusing a public figure of actually lying in the evidential basis for his business. I am positively grateful for your skepticism and suspicion - that's what I'm looking for - but I hope you will allow the failure of your arguments to challenge your beliefs, and where I err I shall try to do the same with your help.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

BTW, when you say "Acting like a pseudoscientist is not a scientific measure" - it's not scientific evidence, but it is rational evidence.

[reddragdiva]

Well, yes. If someone behaves like a pseudoscientist, they are clearly hard of thinking and their scientific assertions and general reasoning should be much more closely inspected than those of someone who doesn't do that.