X-Message-Number: 15489
From: 
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 16:27:17 EST
Subject: Wakfer

Wakfer's latest (#15478) is tiresome, pretentious and offensive 
pontificating, but I will point out a couple of things. First, consider this 
Wakfer gem:

>There are no accepted views of what preservation "methods" are best for
>brains, since "best" implies a specific purpose, and the purposes of
>some uses of brains are not at all the same as other uses. Finally,
>"best" is by its very nature not an objective of science which is the
>investigation of reality and the discovery of the facts thereof. "Best"
>is a purely subjective term of valuation and as such is totally
>non-scientific. However, even in subjective practical terms, no one in
>cryobiology or any other branch of science (except perhaps those at INC
>and 21CM) currently has the purpose of restoring life as their purpose
>for preserving brains!

All clear now? On the one hand, for example, anyone who tries to find the 
"best" way to treat a disease is just not scientific. On the other hand, INC 
and 21CM do have a clear criterion for the "best" procedure in 
cryopreservation and are very scientific.

Then there is a torrent of drivel, the net import of which is that 
documentation of various possible measurements during a suspension procedure 
is more important than evaluation of the actual result. In part:

>intermediate dynamic measurements often tell much more than a few electron 
>micrographs (which after all are of an insignificant amount of the total 
tissue which >was processed).

Anyone who believes this is welcome to it.

Next:

>>Two sets of independent professionals have evaluated our work,

>Please state their professional qualifications.
>Ie. what have they done which directly relates to what CI had them do?

They are university faculty with specialties in electron microscopy, 
physiology, and pathology.

And:

>from which portions of the tissue were the micrographs taken? Were these 
from >the highly glycerolized portions near the vasculature, the intermediate 
>concentration portions further away, or the nearly untouched portions 
farthest >from any glycerol perfusate?   

All of the above, with little difference. 


Then:

>One has to have detailed knowledge of the whole experiment and its purposes, 
in >order to conduct a worthwhile evaluation. 

More drivel. A physician can examine a patient, or a vet can examine a dog or 
cat, and make a diagnosis without knowing his previous history. The history 
could in some cases be helpful, but that is usually a minor aspect. If the 
X-ray shows a tumor, that is the main thing.

Next:

>We do not know what is best and we *will not* know what is best until an 
animal >brain is restored with full functionality in all reasonably 
measurable parameters.

Unbelievable! "Best" does not mean perfect, it means the procedure which, 
among those we have tried, has shown the best results, the least damage, by 
all the criteria we are able to apply.

And finally, Wakfer:

>If one doesn't know enough to evaluate one's own results, then one does
>not know enough to be doing the experiment! To separate the evaluation
>of results from the conduct of the experiment which produced them is not
>feasible scientifically. 

Perhaps a new high for both pretentiousness and drivel. We are able to 
conduct many experiments. We are not equipped to do electron microscopy. We 
hire experts for this. I somehow doubt that most readers, "scientific" or 
not, will fault us for this.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org  

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