X-Message-Number: 19717
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2002 16:39:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: Michael Hartl <>
Subject: Michael Shermer and cryonics
Hello all,
I'm a long time lurker, first time poster.
The Contra Costa Times article (discussed recently at
Cryonet) included yet another anti-cryonics comment
by Michael Shermer, a skeptic whose views and work I
respect but whose public comments about cryonics have
not been up to his usual standards. I was moved by
his most recent comment to address the subject with
him directly.
Reproduced below is an email exchange between us
over the past two days. I hope it proves to be of
interest to some on this list. I've offset his
responses with angle brackets for clarity. There
are several references that may be unfamiliar (e.g.,
LIGO, Cialdini, and "baloney detection"); I suggest
that you google them if you want more information.
Let's hope that further cryonics comments (if any) by
Dr. Shermer are factual, not flippant.
Cheers,
Michael
A-1870
-----
To Skeptic Magazine:
I am a long time admirer of Michael Shermer's work
on behalf of skepticism and reason. I also had the
pleasure of meeting him last year when he gave a
talk discussing his career path at a meeting of
Caltech graduate students. It is therefore with a
measure of surprise that, in the wake of the Ted
Williams/cryonics story, I have seen Michael Shermer
quoted several times voicing views hostile to
cryonics.
Perhaps Dr. Shermer is not aware that many --
perhaps most -- cryonicists are skeptics, and often
ally themselves with skeptical organizations. For
example, Marvin Minsky, MIT professor and keynote
speaker at the most recent World Skeptics
Conference, is a noted cryonicist and member of
Alcor (the same organization at the center of the
Ted Williams controversy).
I am also an Alcor member, and I have been an ardent
skeptic for most of my life. Though some
cryonicists evince aspects of faith-based religion,
such faith is an aberration and does not represent
the core attitude of cryonics. Cryonics, though
speculative, is fundamentally scientific in nature,
and does not rely on faith-based justification.
I would be happy to meet with Dr. Shermer some time to
discuss the possible merits of cryonics.
Sincerely,
Michael Hartl
Ph.D. candidate, Caltech Department of Physics
Member, Alcor Life Extension Foundation
-----
> Michael:
>
> Thanks for the letter. I am not at all hostile
> toward cryonics. Like most cryonicists, I am a
> realist about it and believe that the chances of it
> working are close to zero. Of course, getting
> cremated makes reanimation a zero probability, so it
> is better than that. But when asked the simple
> question of whether I think it can work (which is
> what these sound-bite interviews were), I just state
> that I do not think so.
>
> Michael
-----
Michael,
Thanks for your response. You might be right that
cryonics won't work, of course. I'm more concerned
with the tone of the comments (though this might be
a case of being quoted out of context). A recent
article in the Contra Costa Times quoted you as
saying that "Cryonics is almost a faith-based
secular religion in the sense that it is based on
the idea of achieving immortality and being
resurrected." To my ear this sounds harsh, akin to
creationist charges that evolution, and science
generally, is replete with its own articles of faith
(though how this serves their case is always
unclear).
I've also seen your thawed-out strawberry "this is
your brain on cryonics" remark quoted in several Ted
Williams articles. This turn of phrase, which I
believe originally appeared in one of your regular
columns in Scientific American, is quite clever but
a bit flippant. Such a remark potentially belittles
cryonicists by suggesting that any idiot who has
ever noticed that defrosted strawberries are mushy
is smart enough to see that cryonics could never
work. The situation, as I'm sure you're aware, is
much more complicated than that.
Perhaps you can see why I described your views
toward cryonics as "hostile". Your statements
reflect more than a prudent doubt about the
prospects of cryonics -- they have a harsh and
dismissive tone that seems to characterize
cryonicists either as fools or pseudoscientific
"religious" zealots. At least as portrayed in
media sound bites, your views come across as much
more negative than a mere "in my view, cryonics has
very little chance of success."
I realize that your position as a "professional
skeptic" might make it difficult for you to make a
public statement sympathetic to cryonics. The various
media come to you for a "skeptical" point of view, and
endorsing something as weird as cryonics might
undermine your credibility. I suggest
approaching cryonics with a sense of curiosity, wary
that this potential conflict of interest might
make you prematurely dismissive. If you have not
already done so, I warmly recommend reading Eric
Drexler's "Engines of Creation" (available free on
the Web at http://www.foresight.org/EOC/), especially
Chapter 9 ("A Door to the Future"), which specifically
addresses the scientific basis for cryonics.
If you have already thoroughly examined the
scientific basis for cryonics, but still find it
lacking, then we merely have a difference of
opinion. In this case, I (and, I suspect, many of
my fellow cryonicists) would appreciate it if you
would avoid characterizing us in such negative
terms.
* We are not idiots. We are mostly an intelligent,
skeptical bunch, and many of us have advanced
degrees in scientific or engineering fields.
Cryonicists know that strawberries are mushy when
thawed out; implications that we don't are a little
insulting.
* We don't believe in resurrection. Death is, by
definition, irrevocable. If the cryonically
suspended are eventually revived, then by definition
they were not dead. (If you adopt a definition of
death omitting irrevocability, then the question is
moot: many people alive today have already been
"resurrected".)
* We are not, for the most part, "believers". I
don't "believe" that cryonics will work, any more
than I "believe" that LIGO will detect gravitational
waves. Cryonics is an experiment; we don't know the
results yet. We think that it could work based on
known laws of physics, but we know that you still
have to do the experiment. (Based on my knowledge
of general relativity, I think that LIGO will
probably detect gravitational waves, but no one
knows for sure. That's why we're spending $300m to
find out.)
* Cryonics requires no faith -- not in cryonics, not
in science, not in the future. It is true that
cryonics requires medical technology that appears
miraculous by today's standards. Considering the
standard skeptic's definition of "faith" as "belief
without (or even in spite of) evidence", which of
the following statements requires faith?
(a) Medical technology 50 years from now will appear
miraculous by contemporary standards;
or
(b) Medical technology 50 years from now will not
appear miraculous by contemporary standards.
I submit that (b), not (a), requires "belief without
evidence". 50 years ago, antibiotics were novel,
organ transplants were nonexistent, and the
structure of DNA was unknown -- and I'd wager that
medicine 50 years hence will have advanced far more
that it has in the past 50.
In short, be brief: "I think that cryonics has
almost no chance of success." Unless you are
prepared to justify your statements with rigorous
and detailed arguments, please leave it at that.
Don't dismiss cryonics as 0.2 (one notch above
creationism and UFOs?) on your "borderlands of
science" scale. You are too accomplished a skeptic
for such an unjustified claim, and too rigorous a
thinker to indulge in ad hominem attacks --
"cryonicists follow a faith-based secular religion"
-- or straw-man arguments -- "mushy strawberries:
this is your brain on cryonics". (You see, I, too,
am wise in the ways of baloney detection.)
Opposition to the feasibility of cryonics relies
overwhelmingly on social proof -- "everyone knows
cryonics will never work" -- and authority -- "most
scientists think cryonics will never work". (Yes,
I've read Cialdini.) Be careful not to fall into
the same trap. No one has tried harder than
cryonicists to prove that cryonics can't work; I for
one would be happy to save the $400 a year. But
cryonics violates no know physical laws, and
(especially as suspension technologies advance) it
seems foolhardy to suggest that medical technology
will never be able to revive the suspended. The
upside is tremendous, and there's nothing to lose
but money. Cryonics failing a cost-benefit
analysis? Completely reasonable. Cryonics failing
a baloney detection test? No way.
Sincerely,
Michael
-----
> I find nothing in what you wrote to disagree with in
> any significant manner. I think it really is just a
> matter of wording one's skepticism. And, yeah,
> sometimes I go for the H. L. Mencken move of
> "sometimes a good horse laugh is worth ten thousand
> syllogisms." I probably should hold my tongue.
>
> Michael
-----
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