X-Message-Number: 16548
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 03:47:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: Re: Research strategy and purpose (re: message 16336)

On Thu, 14 Jun 2001  wrote:


> The three positions that Charles has taken, for example in message 16336, are:
>
> (1) CI's efforts at outside validation for its protocols are unreasonable
>     because they only involve CI's own procedures

I'm reluctant to reopen this, because I don't have time to follow the
topic, and I think I said all I really had to say. But I would not agree
with Dan's use of the word "unreasonable." I would prefer to say something
like, "of limited value."

I believe the most productive approach in any specialized field of
research is to be inclusive rather than exclusive. In a nonspecialized
field, the quantity of data may be so great, no one has time to review it
all; but certainly in cryobiology, it should be possible for any serious
research effort to assimilate all the significant work and build on it,
rather than ignore it.

Presumably Dr. Pichugin does have a thorough, inclusive background and his
presence in CI research may change everything. In the past, however, I
have seen the old "not invented here" syndrome. Also I have seen the work
of cryobiologists deprecated merely because they are cryobiologists, hence
hostile to cryonics, hence untrustworthy. Conversely I have seen amazing
(and, as it turned out, unwarranted) credulity toward the claims of Olga
Visser, whose anti-scientific-establishment attitude seemed to resonate
with the outlook at CI.

I think if CI had been more receptive to conventional cryobiology
research, it might have chosen to start ramping perfusion concentration in
1991 rather than in 2001, just to take one obvious example.

--CP

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=16548