X-Message-Number: 19721 From: Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2002 11:01:11 EDT Subject: Re: This is skeptic Shermer, this is Shermer on Cryonics --part1_127.14fd1b7e.2a83e1b7_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 8/8/02 5:01:41 AM Eastern Daylight Time, writes: > > Message #19717 > Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2002 16:39:18 -0700 (PDT) > From: Michael Hartl <> > Subject: Michael Shermer and cryonics > > Hello all, > > I'm a long time lurker, first time poster. > > The Contra Costa Times article (discussed recently at > Cryonet) included yet another anti-cryonics comment > by Michael Shermer, a skeptic whose views and work I > respect but whose public comments about cryonics have > not been up to his usual standards. I was moved by > his most recent comment to address the subject with > him directly. > > Hello, Dear Cryonetters, I want to express my appreciation and admiration for the articulate and reasoned response and dialogue that Michael Hartl has initiated with Michael Shermer. I also responded with a letter to the editor to Scientific American after the Shermer column on cryonics. My tone was similar, but focused on the unfair characterization by Shermer about cryonics being a ridiculously expensive gamble with virtually no payoff. Michael Shermer understands and KNOWS that most cryonic suspensions are paid with Life insurance, for the simple reason that I discussed this with him DIRECTLY at a skeptics conference in Ft. Lauderdale, FL in 1997! Yet he made no reference to this knowledge. Instead he took the low road, grouping us with UFO nuts and lunatic fringers. This really disappointed me with someone I have considered a hero. BTW, when we were discussing cryonics, in the pool at Ft. Lauderdale, Shermer indicated he knew several intelligent and scientific cryonicists. Among them, I believe, was Steve Harris. (A more articulate spokesperson for life extension is hard to imagine.) The tone of the "reprimand" that Hartl has struck is JUST RIGHT. Most of us cryonicists are INDEED rigorous and thourogoing SKEPTICS. Scientific rationalism is the tone of the dialogues that gain credibility in cryonics circles. And Hartl was exactly correct in clearly defining the TONE and attitude Shermer presents toward cryonicists, as being flippant and dismissive. I think most readers of this post would agree that Shermer is generally more well reasoned than this, and that the potential seriousness of the life and death struggle we are engaged in deserves a correction on Shermer's part. Warm wishes to all, Rudi Hoffman, in a rare break from emailing and calling cryonics prospects. --part1_127.14fd1b7e.2a83e1b7_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19721