X-Message-Number: 30057
From: 
Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2007 22:57:44 EST
Subject: qualfications for social scientists

David Stodolsky has repeatedly recommended that cryonics organizations hire  
one or more Ph.D.s in  social science to guide efforts to shape public  

attitudes and official policy. Keth Henson then wrote,  "Any  suggestion, David,
as 
to a social scientist [who] might consider the   
problem?" Stodolsky then wrote, "I am qualified and have been working on it  
in my spare time. However,  
I have gotten as far as I can without  financial support."
 
So I'll ask a few more questions. Admittedly I am  biased against Stodolsky, 
who seems to me to hold all kinds of ridiculous  opinions, among them the 

notion that peer reviewed publications and Ph.D.s hold  some  kind of magic and
deserve automatic respect. Anyway, let's look at  some relevant questions.
 
The main question is what makes D.S. think he is qualified for this job.  

First, exactly how would he characterize the goal, and what has he accomplished
in the past that suggests he might be successful? How much money does he want, 
 and how would he spend it? And if he has been working on it, as he says, 
what  has he arrived at so far? I could stop here, but I can't resist pointing 
out  some D.S.. bloopers.
 
D.S. writes: "We have been seeing  
1/4 year increase  in life expectancy per year since 1839. Therefore,  
it will be a long  time before there is no need for suspension. Life  
expectation will  only be increased by 17 years in 2074."
 
Laugh or cry? Aside from the absurdity of linear extrapolation  over long 

periods, he is referring to published figures for LIFE EXPECTANCY AT  BIRTH. It
doesn't take a Ph.D. to know that this figure stems mainly from  declines in 

infant mortality, and has nothing to do with life span or expectancy of further
life at advanced ages. The latter  figure seems to show increases close to 

zero, but  is difficult to estimate because of the complexity of factors. (For
example, mortality from heart disease and cancer have been much higher in 

recent  times than a century or two back, and populations and life styles  
change.)
 
Note: Perhaps D.S. got his 1/4 year per year increase  from Oeppen, J., 
Vaupel, J.W., Science, 296, 1029, 2002.  Possibly the world's most prestigious 
journal. These guys must be good,  right? Well, they  not only describe this 3 
month annual increase as  perhaps the "most remarkable regularity of mass 

endeavour ever observed",  but further, they claim that on this basis life 
expectancy 
can be expected to  increase at this same annual rate for the foreseeable 

future. Anybody who  swallows their garbage really needs help, and that clearly
includes the editors  of Science.
 
We also know to a virtual certainty that the  future will NOT be a simple 
extension of the past. 
Relatively simple measures have already produced MAJOR  increases in life 
span for some laboratory animals. There will be abrupt  shifts in life. 


Incldentally, although I don't have a doctorate,  my second Masters was in 
probability theory, and I learned and taught a fair  amount of statistical 

theory, so I'm not easy to fool in these matters, even if  I have forgotten a 
lot. 
(For my discussion of probability and cryonics, see on  our web site,  

_http://www.cryonics.org/probability.html_ 
(http://www.cryonics.org/probability.html) 
)
 

D.S.. also wrote:
"Social movements normally have an isolationist stage and then   
transition into being mass movements. So, there is no fixed rate of   
growth, but very slow growth at first, then a spurt, and then slow   
growth. The transition into a mass movement could occur at any time.   
Economic factors are in favor of offering cryonic suspension to the   
very sick in the advanced countries, since it would save money.   
Therefore, the barrier is cultural."
 
Most of that translates as blah blah blah. The  conclusion--the barrier is 
cultural--was and remains obvious based on simple  common sense and not any 
"studies" of "stages" of movements.
 
Respect for "authority" is sometimes a good idea, but  don't suspend your 
critical faculty.
 
Robert Ettinger







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