X-Message-Number: 18106 From: Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 01:41:11 EST Subject: Skeptic in Scientific American. --part1_12b.8b08fc4.2941be87_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In the December issue of Scientific American, Michael Shermer writes the second part of an article on Baloney detection. He defines a value between science and pseudosciences for a number of things. He lists for example string theory as having a value of 0.7 and cryonics as 0.2. Here, 1 is mere science and 0 mere superstition. The problem I see is not the pseudoscience side of cryonics, it is the fact of putting cryonics as a science. See for example string theory: It is true (at some physical level) or false whatever we can think or do. What we can do is a set of experiment to prove or disprove that theory. If the theory is true, no action can be undertaken so that it becomes false. For me, cryonics is only a potential technology. It is not a science and never will. If we don't nothing (no experiments) it will never becomes a true technology, on the other hand, if we do many experiments we will succeed one day or another. What could be put on the Shermer's scale is not cryonics, it would be cryonics *and* a way to fulfil it. For example, in 1950 there could have been the statement: It is possible to go to the Moon and going back. To put it on Shermer's scale we would have to add: using balloons or using rockets for example. The first is mere pseudoscience, the second is perfectly workable technology. Can we live again using cryonics *and* nano repair devices? That may be pseudoscience (or not), at least here Shermer's scale make sense. If you write: cryonics can't work without saying by what way it can't work, you assume it can't work whatever path you choose to the aim. And there are an infinite number of potential path, so how can you give a finite value on a scale for the sum of an infinite number of paths? The only way is to make a value judgement based on religious faith: " I say no path can get to the cryonics objective because God will not permit it. A strange way to define science. Yvan Bozzonetti. --part1_12b.8b08fc4.2941be87_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=18106