X-Message-Number: 5872
From: 
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 12:01:28 -0500
Subject: SCI. CRYONICS bad law vs. cryonics

Some fossilized barbs have been directed against cryonics in recent months
from legalUK, posted there and on Sci. Cryonics & Sci. Life Extension. In
view of the possibility of saving a few lives, I'll try to add my bit to the
discussion from time to time. Today I'll just focus on the incredible
effrontery of attacks on the cryonics/immortalist movement, which is tiny and
beneficent, by members of the legal establishment, which is enormous and
malignant--a running sore on the face of humanity, depleting our strength and
stinking to heaven.

Of course some modest qualifiers are in order. Many lawyers and judges are
medium honest, in their fashion--and surprisingly honest against the historic
background of pervasive corruption. Judges and lawyers have always been
subject to constant opportunities and temptations for venality, and the
present U.S. and U.K. systems are not bad by past standards. But that is
faint praise indeed; in absolute terms, the legal profession is exceedingly
backward and crammed full of thievery and bias. Let's first look at a few of
the disgraces in broad terms.

1. Perhaps the least objectionable segments of the legal profession are in
the clerk-assistant type functions, where the lawyer or solicitor merely
helps a client navigate paperwork and deal with bureaucracies, as in drawing
wills and contracts, reading real estate abstracts, etc. But even here the
profession is close to the medieval guild heritage--a self-serving,
self-perpetuating monopoly receiving exorbitant fees for routine and usually
simple work. Some small corrections have begun, in the form of allowing
paralegals to do some of the work previously restricted to attorneys. This
needs to be pushed much further, and the underlying structure simplified and
rationalized.

2. The whole adversary system is a medieval holdover of the bizarre concept
of trial by combat of champions; whoever hires the best legal gunslinger is
likely to prevail. 

Unlike almost any other profession, in adversarial law it is considered a
mark of merit to lie, cheat, and steal on behalf of a client. Lawyers are
proudest of those cases they won that had the least merit. In Michigan, and
probably elsewhere, new laywers being sworn in take an oath NOT TO ACCEPT AN
UNJUST CAUSE--but of course that is totally ignored under the "right" of an
accused or a litigant to the most vigorous representation.  

Many improvements have been proposed, and some implemented to a small extent,
including expansion of use of mediation and arbitration; but much more needs
to be done.

3. The guild frequently protects itself at the direct expense of clients. For
example, it is common in the U.S. for a husband in a divorce case to pay for
both his attorney and his wife's. The wife's attorney will often submit
fraudulent billing, but the judge and the husband's attorney refuse to
challenge it. 

4. Much of the law is fossilized, with obvious and important reforms ignored
for decades or
centuries. Consider the question of "admissible" evidence. In most cases e.g.
the results of "lie detector" or polygraph tests are not admissible, even
though there is a good statistical base for estimating reliability. On the
other hand, a jury is encouraged to use the "demeanor" of a party or a
witness in arriving at a judgment as to truthfulness, even though it has been
well known and scientifically proven for many decades that such judgments are
extremely unreliable.

5. Judges--even when they believe themselves honest, which is far from
universally the case--frequently hand down rulings based on their personal
prejudices rather than evidence and law. Often in effect they make law rather
than interpret it, using their personal views of the social effects of the
ruling. And they are freqently incompetent to understand the evidence.
Corporate trial lawyers tell me their hardest problem often is to couch the
argument in terms the judge can understand and to which he will pay
attention. 

In cases such as last year's Simpson trial, typically nobody on either side,
or on the bench, understands the probabilistic side of the evidence. The
court conveys the impression that if a particular item of evidence against a
defendant allows a reasonable doubt, that item of evidence must be ignored.
But suppose there are (say) ten independent items of evidence, each
indicating only a 10% probabililty of innocence, which might be construed as
reasonable doubt in each individual case. Then the COLLECTIVE probability of
innocence is only 10% to the tenth power, or one in 10 billion, which does
NOT leave a reasonable doubt. Gross miscarriages of justice undermine the
fabric of society.

6. The concept of guilt/innocence, or liable/not, needs to be replaced by a
finding of
PROBABILITY of guilt or liability. In effect, this sometimes happens, when we
consider together both the verdict and the sentence or award; but it needs to
be made explicit and unformly applied, with jurists and jurors trained in the
underlying disciplines. I have shown mathematically how this would improve
results, in terms of reducing miscarriages of justice.

7. Lawyers like to pretend that the law, if sometimes irrational and slow to
change, is at least consistent and conservative. This is not the case.
Different jurisdictions, or even the same jurisdiction at different times,
may produce wildly different results in very similar cases.

In a recent exchange I said something to the effect that the law does not
[usually] try to dictate to a testator to whom he may make bequests; a
UKlegal response was that the law does indeed impose restrictions, such as
the rule against perpetuities and sometimes individual judicial restrictions.
Of course: that is so obvious I didn't think it needed mentioning. Obviously,
sometimes a relative will claim the testator was incompetent or unduly
influenced; and sometimes a relative may claim a "right" to some of the
estate based on previous relationships etc., and sometimes the court will
agree. It remains true, in general, that in the U.S. and the U.K. we are free
within broad limits to bequeath our money as we see fit, EVEN FRIVOLOUSLY. If
bequests are permitted that are frivolous or arguably irrational, why should
any court even remotely consider disallowing a cryonics bequest?

8. As noted above, most lawyers and judges are naive about science and
statistics. In the
exchange just mentioned, the UKlegal writer gave his basis for estimating
probability of revival of a cryonics patient--and showed a near-total
ignorance of the subject. 

What he said, in part, was that if a man can jump 1.95 m, it is reasonable to
expect a jump of 2 m by someone some time; but if the existing record were 3
cm, an expectation of a future 2m would not be reasonable. This is not an apt
analogy.

To make a partial analogy to his analogy, consider predictions of a moon
rocket in the early part of this century, when Goddard and Tsiolkovsky were
advocating it. To what fraction of the distance to the moon had rockets
carried people then? Zero. What fraction of the necessary computer
electronics had been created then? Zero. Many "scientists" did not even
realize that a reaction engine does not need an atmosphere to "push against."
Yet the basics were in place--payloads and accelerations could be calculated
for various fuels--and it was a reasonable assumption that the technical
details would be worked out in due course. But hardly any experts recognized
this at the time.

We have many technical references and detailed discussions to support our
position that revival of present cryostasis patients is NOT a long shot.

Further and more important discussion to follow, when I get around to it.

R.C.W. Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society


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