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

[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.

[reddragdiva]

Yep, it was sloppy and I had SCEPTIC FAIL. Bah!

Luke from yer blog comments has come by RationalWiki and is discussing stuff sensibly on the talk page. I've expressly asked him on his user talk page to kick the hell out of the cryonics article.