X-Message-Number: 19590 Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 06:57:46 -0700 (PDT) From: Driven FromThePack <> Subject: Moronic San Diego anti-cryonics editorial Excerpts from a moronic San Diego Union editorial against cryonics: >> On immortality Cryonics is a crime against natural order July 17, 2002 .... Baseball legend Ted Williams' death has revealed to the more gullible what they may take for a better way to immortality: It's called cryonics and its advantage is that it's not your mirror image that survives, as in cloning, but really you. Really? People silly enough to seek physical immortality, if that's not a contradiction in terms, have been cheered by the hoopla around the slugger's new frozen home, home at least for now as the family sorts things out. More attention surely means more investment in cryonics, which just may mean lead to an immortality breakthrough. You just never know. Dr. Jerry Lemler, head of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Williams' home for now, reminds us that people once laughed at Leonardo and his flying machines, and just look at us now. Even if freezing us for a few hundred years (actually, all you really need is the head, and it's half price) might bring the DNA breakthrough that would allow science to recreate the body to screw back onto the head (and this time no flat feet, please), why would anyone want to do such a stupid thing? Once around is enough for most of us. Whatever science may one day be capable of doing, scientists can never avoid the question, what should they be doing? Did we need the hydrogen bomb? Do we want to replace real parents and families with laboratory cyborgs? Do we want to live to be 100, or 200 or forever, and do away with children altogether? Poor Ted Williams deserves better than this and may still be rescued from confusion over his will and the wishes of his son (who reportedly hopes to cash in on his father's gifts by selling his DNA) by other family members with better judgment and taste. .... Beyond that, however, is our conviction that cryonics is one of the dumbest ideas we've ever come across. Even if Williams' immortality were possible which it never will be because of the impossibility of recreating the millions of cells that constituted the "Splendid Splinter" in, say, 1941, the year he hit .406 who could wish such a thing? Such an idea is an offense against human nature, against natural law, against the natural order of all life which allows creatures to be born, mature and die, making place for the next generation. It is a natural order praised by sacred books and celebrated in life, art, political theory and science itself. "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:/ a time to be born, and a time to die;/ a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted." ... >>>> The full editorial is here: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/wed/opinion/news_1ed17bottom.html You can send a response via the editorial pages using this address: __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19590