X-Message-Number: 2933 Date: 22 Jul 94 23:58:40 EDT From: Paul Wakfer <> Subject: CRYONICS Trusting Reports To: CRYONET I wish this comment not to be taken the wrong way. It is not a comment concerning Bob Ettinger's trustworthiness. There truly is no more dedicated and trustworthy a cryonicist than Bob. However, I feel compelled to point out the relationship of a comment which he made in CRYOMSG #2928 to exactly what Mike Darwin and Thomas Donaldson have been saying about giving full details and methods of all experiments. >From Bob: >(We didn't trust anybody's reports or recommendations, --- Reports of the results of experiments may only be verified as trustworthy when they are written up with the full details on equipment used, experimental method followed, and all raw measurements taken. Only then can one examine the experiment critically to ascertain if important variables were ignored, measurements made incorrectly, by equipment inappropriate to the task, etc. This also is the only possible method which could allow reproducability of the results (an necessary step before any result is to be fully "trusted"). Experiments done in the past by Alcor/Jerry Leaf/Mike Darwin/Hugh Hixon and currently by Cryovita/21CM/BioPreservation ARE fully documented in this fashion. They CAN therefore be critically reviewed by knowledgeable peers and if found to survive such critical review (and it is thorough), they should be able to be reproduced. What Bob gives us once again in this very message explaining his rationale for his sheep work (and which ironically contains the above quote) is more of the same inexact, undetailed (and, I'm sad to say, therefore UNTRUSTWORTHY AND ESSENTIALLY UNUSEABLE) statements such as: >We looked primarily for minimum edema and maximum uptake of glycerol. >We found that most of the chemical additives recommended made no >perceptible difference, except mannitol, which did tend to reduce edema. >We also found that an initial high concentration of glycerol seemed to do >better than ramping up ... BY WHAT CRITERIA? WHAT EXACT METHOD WAS USED, SO THAT ONE MIGHT DUPLICATE THE RESULTS? WHAT WAS MEASURED AND BY WHAT EQUIPMENT? WHERE IS THE OBJECTIVE RAW DATA FOR US TO CRITICALLY REVIEW? If this detail is available please supply it. If it has never been produced, then I don't see how, for the reasons very well explained by Thomas Donaldson, that you can TRUST YOUR OWN RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS. -- Paul Wakfer -- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2933