X-Message-Number: 30818
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:40:52 -0700
From: "Jeff Davis" <>
Subject: Re: 'Why People Believe Weird Things'

Message #30814
From: "Chris Manning" <>
Subject: 'Why People Believe Weird Things'
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:04:04 +1000

<snip>

...Further on, Shermer writes:

'...cryonicists ignore all the revolutionary new ideas that were wrong.'

We don't " ignore" the many "new and revolutionary" ideas that were
"wrong".  On the contrary we readily acknowledge them.  [I hope that
in using the broad and inclusive "we", effectively speaking for
others, I am not to any great extent misrepresenting the views of my
fellow cryonicists. ]

When we say that cryonics is an ongoing experiment, whose final
outcome, and with it the validity of the cryonics thesis, is still
uncertain, we are acknowledging the possibility that our
"revolutionary new idea" may in the end be proven wrong.

We understand the human activity that is science, how humans who are
scientists attempt to elucidate and explain aspects of the universe
not yet fully understood. We are also familiar with the competitive
(ie human) nature of science, and with ambition and the pursuit of
personal acclaim and financial reward.  We "get" the science "game",
the multiple competing theories, the race to be the first to discover,
prove, and publish (and patent), and the multitude of theories, all
but one of which must "fail" and fall by the wayside.  Cryonicists get
it.  Cryonicists are not "true believers".  Sorry, Michael.  (You see,
Shermer was once a true believer.  He was brought up religious, and
was once quite the evangelical.  But now he's seen the light.  Risen
above ooga booga superstition.  Come out of the darkness.  All that
remains is a bit of twitchiness, a certain hypersensitivity, a
tendency to see "true believers" behind every bush.  Understandable.)
Sorry Michael, no true believers here.  Just geeks (ie scientists).

Shermer's skepticism practiced in the popular press, is a less
rigorous version of the crucial scientific practice of falsification.
So he's actually one of us.

Best, Jeff Davis

       "Science works, religion doesn't."
                         Berni Chong

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