X-Message-Number: 30124
From: Kennita Watson <>
Subject: 1998-2007 Survey Comparison
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 19:58:47 -0800
This is an informal comparison of responses from a 1998 survey by
Scott Badger (summary and analysis at http://www.jetpress.org/volume3/
badger.htm) and responses to a similar survey (a subset of the first)
conducted in 2007 (analysis/comparison below). The results are not
directly comparable for a number of reasons:
* 1998 survey -- conducted online
2007 survey -- conducted on paper, face-to-face
* 1998 survey -- 517 responses over one month
2007 survey -- 91 responses over two days
* 1998 survey -- no incentive offered for response
2007 survey -- entry in drawing offered for response
* 1998 survey -- no "Don't Know" responses allowed
2007 survey -- "Don't Know" responses allowed
* 1998 survey -- extensive questions re demographics; familiarity and
motivation sections
2007 survey -- removed most demographics questions; removed
familiarity
and motivation sections; added FDGD section
With that in mind, following are the results for the identically-
worded questions on the 1998 and 2007 surveys, for whatever value/
interest they may hold.
Gender
Male Female
1998 57.1 42.9
2007 38.5 61.5
Religion
Agnostic Atheist Buddhist Christian Hindu Jewish Moslem
1998 16.4 6.6 2.5 57.1 1.5 4.4 1.2
2007 11.0 12.1 1.1 40.7 0.0 2.2 0.0
Religion, cont.
Pagan/Wiccan Taoist No Affiliation Other
1998 N/A 10.3 N/A N/A
2007 2.2 1.1 23.1 6.6
comment: I think Taoist was overrepresented in the 1998 survey
because there was no Other choice.
Q18. I love being alive and I want to remain alive and healthy for as
long as I can.
1998 1.46 0.78
2007 1.68 1.09
Q19. Being frozen is no guarantee that I will be revived someday, but
I know my chances are zero if I am buried or cremated.
1998 1.57 0.88
2007 1.90 1.20
Q20. I could accomplish much more with my life if it were
significantly extended.
1998 2.49 1.03
2007 2.44 1.29
Q21. I'm very optimistic about humankind's future and want to be
there to see and participate in the amazing advances that will be
made.
1998 2.40 1.09
2007 2.47 1.31
Q22. I look forward to a time when we won't have to suffer the loss
of our friends and family because of aging and disease.
1998 2.50 1.20
2007 2.40 1.35
Q23. I'm excited about the prospect of waking up in a body made young
again through bio-technological advances.
1998 2.77 1.25
2007 2.76 1.43
Q24. Cryonics doesn't interest me because I just don't think it will
work. 1998 3.11 1.12
2007 3.18 1.14
Q25. The cost of having my body frozen is far too expensive for me.
1998 2.21 0.95
2007 2.50 1.20
Q26. Dealing with wills, insurance policies, and other legal matters
is too much trouble to make Cryonics worthwhile.
1998 3.22 1.00
2007 3.15 1.14
Q27. Extending one's life span through Cryonics is unnatural,
selfish, and immoral.
1998 3.20 1.16
2007 3.37 1.15
Q28. Cryonics is a bad idea because it would lead to an
overpopulation problem.
1998 2.90 1.11
2007 3.08 1.26
Q29. I don't think about Cryonics because I don't like thinking about
death.1998 3.69 1.02
2007 3.65 0.97
Q30. Cryonically preserving me would be too hard/weird for my family/
friends to handle.
1998 2.83 1.06
2007 2.78 1.28
Q31. I'm too young and healthy to even care about it at this point.
1998 3.52 1.03
2007 3.23 1.07
Q32. I would not want to wake up in a future time without my family
or friends around.
1998 2.73 1.19
2007 2.55 1.27
Q33. I don't think that people in the future will have any interest
in reviving frozen bodies.
1998 3.36 1.09
2007 3.41 1.32
Q44. I believe that Cryonics is an exciting idea an intend on looking
into it further.
1998 2.09 N/A
2007 3.10 1.23
I'm not sure why the 1998 survey didn't include a standard deviation
for this one.
I only worked with OpenOffice Calc and my scanty statistics
knowledge, so I wasn't able to get p-values for differences between
males and females; I made do with deciding that a difference in
values of 0.3 or more might be interesting, if not statistically
significant. Values with slashes are AVERAGE/STDEV.
Number of respondents:
F: 55
M: 35
I could accomplish much more with my life if it were significantly
extended.
F: 2.65/1.31
M: 2.12/1.2
(corroborates 1998 diff)
Dealing with wills, insurance policies, and other legal matters is
too much trouble to make Cryonics worthwhile.
F: 2.9/1.17
M: 3.53/0.98
Cryonics is a bad idea because it would lead to an overpopulation
problem.
F: 2.96/1.29
M: 3.26/1.22
Cryonically preserving me would be too hard/weird for my family/
friends to handle.
F: 2.65/1.32
M: 2.97/1.22
I would not want to wake up in a future time without my family or
friends around.
F: 2.28/1.25
M: 2.97/1.21
(corroborates 1998 diff)
I believe that Cryonics is an exciting idea an intend on looking into
it further.
F: 3.16/1.30
M: 2.69/1.28
(corroborates 1998 diff)
In the 2007 survey, women again perceived cryonics as less affordable
than men, but this time not by much (2.51 to 2.48).
Men again were more excited about a young, healthy body, but only by
a 2.65 to 2.84 margin.
This time, women and men had almost identical attitudes about
cryonics being immoral, 3.35 to 3.39.
Unlike on the previous survey, women seemed slightly more inclined to
disagree that people in the future will have no interest in reviving
frozen bodies (3.47 to 3.33).
While respondents in age ranges 25-34 and >64 did tend to have
favorable attitudes towards cryonics (to agree more with more of the
negative statements, and disagree more with more of the positive
statements), in my analysis those in the 45-54 age range expressed
those sentiments more strongly, and those under 24 less so.
These are the only statistics I've had time to extract. Raw data
from the 2007 survey are available for those who wish to peruse them
and/or to perform their own statistical analysis.
Suggestions for changes to make to the survey (keeping it short) and/
or discussion of whether the current survey should be replicated as
is to gather more data are welcome.
Thanks for your attention,
Kennita Watson
Go Cryo!
Live long and prosper,
Kennita
--
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