X-Message-Number: 30691
From: David Stodolsky <>
Subject: Re: cost as disincentive
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 16:14:08 +0200
References: <>

On 7 Apr 2008, at 16:25, John de Rivaz wrote:
> On a cold damp Friday in January I travelled down to Westminster  
> College, Cambridge, for a conference ?Introduction to Science and  
> Religion run by the Faraday Institute, an academic research  
> enterprise based at St Edmunds College.
> http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/

> Helen Tibble


"The projects of the Faraday Institute are supported by a grant from  
the John Templeton Foundation."


Debate in astrobiology has been actively manipulated with this  
Foundation's aid: It also supported Prof. Gonzalez at U. of  
Washington, who influenced the writing of "Rare Earth". :


<www.highbeam.com/library/docfree.asp?DOCID=1G1:79794362&ctrlInfo=Round18%3AMode18c%3ADocG%3AResult&ao=
 >

 I recently received a grant from the John Templeton Foundation to  
study habitability from a design perspective.... I have not been more  
open about my pro-design views here at the UW because of the open  
hostility to such views among the faculty.... 
 So here is a curious situation of a scientist actively seeking  
evidence that extraterrestrial life is rare to shore up a belief in  
divine design,  Darling writes.


Also, "The Anthropic Principle" by John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler,  
supposedly showing the compatibility of Christianity with modern  
astrophysics, was awarded a prize by Templeton. More recently, it has  
become obvious that the book is not only pseudoscience, but also in  
conflict with recent discoveries in astrophysics. However, in its day  
it got massive publicity and many people still think that traditional  
Christian beliefs are not contradicted by science.


The point here is that substantial funding is being applied to support  
beliefs that are incompatible with the adoption of cryonic suspension.  
It also suggests that a lot broader lobbying, etc. activity will be  
necessary, if cryonics is to be widely accepted. Just promoting the  
rationality of cryonics as a choice will not influence the beliefs  
that stop a majority from even considering the evidence that cryonics  
might work. This is one major conclusion that can be drawn from the  
reanalysis of the Badger data.



dss

David Stodolsky    Skype: davidstodolsky

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