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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=30818