X-Message-Number: 16565
Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 14:48:07 -0400
From: <>
Subject: Evidence supporting beliefs (16552, 16546, 16524, 16533, 16551)

Hi Louis,

Many of us have conversations with our loved ones about cryonics
which are similar to this whole discussion about whether homosexuality is
`deplorable'.  I will paraphrase `deplorable' as `unhealthy', which i
think is a little more specific.

If our loved one presents an anti-cryonics argument which we logically
rebut, the rebuttal may be simply ignored.  I'll bet everybody here
has had that experience.  Likewise, recently the argument has been
made that homosexuality is unhealthy because if everybody was a gay or
lesbian, the species as a whole wouldn't reproduce.  [BTW, this has
been the only argument offered on cryonet that homosexuality is
unhealthy, i believe.]  Kennita eloquently rebutted this in 16546, and
Mike P elaborated.  What Kennita and Mike P pointed out is known in
economics as the fallacy of composition, and an example is `if all
humans were men, the species would be doomed, therefore being a man is
unhealthy'.  (They also pointed out that even if this global
aggregation weren't logically fallacious, the premise is still wrong,
because sometimes gays and lesbians do have children.)

Now you certainly do have a point that we don't want to stifle
diversity of opinion---but i don't think Olaf was trying to do that
in 16551.  His statement was extremely neutral and not confined
to homophobia.

So regarding diversity of opinion, if you have any solid evidence
that homosexuality is intrinsically unhealthy (i'm not sure
`deplorableness' can be dealt with scientifically), i think
you should feel free to bring it up.  But it wouldn't hurt to
do some reading first (e.g., see Wilson's Sociobiology), and bear
in mind that people will scrutinize any scientific arguments you make.
(I don't want to summarize Professor Wilson's arguments, but
genetic fitness and propagation do not boil down to having as
many direct descendents as you can.  There are collateral effects,
and the best strategy for some genes, for example, may be
to propagate by increasing the survival rate of siblings'
descendents.  So it may be to the evolutionary advantage of
some sets of genes to cause a certain fraction of the individuals
in which they are present to engage in behavior which may seem
counter-intuitive.)

Likewise, anybody with arguments against cryonics itself should
make them, but they'll be scrutinized.

As a final observation: in the 1950s i believe nobody in the
scientific establishment would point out that there was no scientific
basis for the belief that homosexuality was unhealthy.  In just 30
or 40 years this changed completely.  I think the same will happen
with cryonics---after all, how can one logically challenge the idea
that some precious human life should be discarded because just at
this moment we can't save it?

dan

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