Talk:Cryonics/Archive 1

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Earliest comments on Talk page

The "NPOV" edit by User:216.138.230.28 makes it look like he's an employee of Alcor. This article needs a large dose of skepticism reintroduced to it. It is way too credulous of the claims of this fringe profession. Tempshill 23:29, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Agreed - someone reading this would think the ideas presented have mainstream support - as far as I know they're only put forward by kooks and those employed by the companies in question. The last paragraph is particularly laughable.

User:206.124.156.155 replaced dashes and minuses with hyphens—without prior discussion. The "old browsers" argument is not acceptable when it comes to errors: confusing dashes with hyphens is not better than confusing commas with quotation marks. Marcus Beyer 02:41, 11 May 2004

Tempshill: I am the person you say comes off like an employee of Alcor. My writing certainly doesn't read like that to me, but I can understand that it might to someone already predisposed against cryonics. I certainly won't deny that I find Alcor's approach to be, overall, quite skeptical and rational. I have tried to keep this bias out of my writing, to the extent possible without misrepresenting things. But, of course, one cannot purge one's own writing entirely of bias. But this is the way Wikipedia works... I have made my best faith effort to restore some semblance of NPOV to the article (the way it was before was certainly far less NPOV, making little attempt to be neutral, with numerous blatantly anti-cryonics remarks, and mostly pretty silly, uneducated ones at that). The anti-cryonics crowd is now free to respond with further editing. So far, they have done very little. This may have something to do with the fact that there does not actually seem to be any serious, scientific attempts to formulate a skeptical and rational anti-cryonics position. The "large dose of skepticism" you would like to see reintroduced (on the anti-cyronics side) is, I suspect, not really out there to be had. If there is such an argument out there, I have not seen it... and if you know of one, I'd be very happy to have the reference. As for your labelling cryonics "fringe", and to the person who responded with the "kooks" comment, I recommend you both go to Alcor's web site and take a look at their Board... many of those involved in this are mainstream, respected scientists--some of them quite famous within the scientific community for their accomplishments--and to suggest otherwise is simply misrepresentation. (One Alcor Board member is also on the Editorial Board of Skeptic magazine, if that is the sort of thing that impresses you.) Allan Randall, 14 May 2005

Graphic

I removed the huge Alcor ad, which ads nothing encyclopedic. The caption

This "bigfoot" Dewar flask is custom-designed to contain four wholebody patients and six neuropatients immersed in liquid nitrogen at -196 degrees Celsius. The Dewar is an insulated container which consumes no electric power. Liquid nitrogen is added periodically to replace the small amount that evaporates.

may include something useful elsewhere in the article, tho there may be some NPoV (remains?) between "patient" and "corpse", and tho the mechanics presumably described at Dewar flask should not be duplicated here: this is an encyclopedia article, not a magazine one.
--Jerzy•t 19:29, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Revert ignorant revisions

Shaggorama made the revision that "(ice crystal formation can cause cells to burst)". This is a fallacy that anyone familiar with cryobiology would recognize. The two main candidates for freezing damage are extracellualar mechanical damage (see Freezing of living cells: mechanisms and implications by Peter Mazur, American Journal of Physiology 247:C125 (1984)) and damage from toxic salts. Freezing does not burst cells -- ice does not form well in cells because most of the nucleators are extracellular. In any case, applying the freezing damage argument against cryonics is a red herring because cryonics organizations currently perfuse with cryoprotectants (anti-freeze compounds) which completely vitrify (eliminate all ice formation) when tissues are well saturated. The other revision by Shaggorama modifies the unresolved argument that future science may or may not be able to repair the damage. This change is not great, but I don't see its merits. --Ben Best 20:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Important: Need source?

Under Damage from ice formation and ischemia, the article says,

Current solutions being used for vitrification are stable enough to avoid crystallization even when a vitrified brain is warmed up. This has recently allowed brains to be vitrified, warmed back up, and examined for ice damage using light and electron microscopy. No ice crystal damage was found.

I'd love to see a source for this. Sounds great, but I want to see where that info come from ASAP. --Mercury1 23:58, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• Good catch. References have been added.Cryobiologist 23:53, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

The stigma of death?

What exactly is the "stigma of death"? These an other original research claims have their days numbered. Perhaps someone from the future will, ironically, look through the history and revive them. savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 11:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

No original research was intended. Perhaps the meaning of the sentence is not clear. What if the sentence in question is changed from

The stigma of death is so onerous that it has been said to make cryonics “a failure by definition.”

to

The characterization of cryonics subjects as dead has been said to make cryonics "a failure by definition."(ref)

? That's an NPOV factual statement about a reference discussing a major issue in the field.Cryobiologist 23:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I deleted the offending sentence entirely, and attempted to further edit the paragraph for clarity. I don't know whether this will be to savidan's liking or not.Cryobiologist 18:39, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Frozen people?

How about a list of (famous?) people currently in cryogenic sleep? --Ifrit 12:13, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Look at Category:Cryonically preserved people. There are not many "famous" people who have been cryopreserved. --Ben Best 13:30, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Immature addition?

It seems someone has added/modified the first 'section' of the article, to "pooing while frozen". I don't know which 8-year-old did that, but I can't seem to find an original version of that section. Riggzy, 22:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks like it was fixed. (Cardsplayer4life 03:07, 11 June 2006 (UTC))

Autopsy discussion

One important topic I think is sorely missing from this page is the legal consideration of autopsy with respect to people who wish their corpses to undergo cryonic storage. Autopsies frequently involve long periods of leaving the body, followed by acts such as sectioning the brain, etc,. It would probably be appropriate to either mention the "Society for Venturism" as an intentionally vague "religion" created for states that allow partial religious excemptions to autopsy laws. A link to a list of states laws on autopsy would also be helpful, if appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.100.183.31 (talk • contribs) 23:18, 5 July 2006‎ (UTC)

"Suspended"

This seems kind of dumb: "cryopreservation is not really suspended animation and human bodies or heads are not buoyant enough in liquid nitrogen to be suspended"

Does anyone really think that "suspended" means "floating" in this context?

--Robbrown 21:04, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it means the same as the second definition on dictionary.com for the word: "To cause to stop for a period; interrupt" or the third definition "To render temporarily ineffective", in relation to life, not the physical bodies, but life itself. See Suspended animation for more information. (Cardsplayer4life 06:02, 17 July 2006 (UTC))

The play on words is a joke, obviously. But it makes the point that there has come to be a preference in cryonics for the term "cryopreservation" rather than "suspended" because the multiple meanings of "suspended" that make jokes possible also create confusion. Cryobiologist 00:28, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Certainly a joke. Although a good one, it should probably be edited.

Examples

Aren't extra embryos frozen during in-vitro fertilization and animal cloning? Why don't they suffer "freezer burn"?

Is it just a rumor that a dog's heart was frozen (vitrified?), thawed and reimplanted and the dog lived? - Omegatron 00:21, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

Embryos are small enough to be infused with cryoprotectants. They are also rebust to cellular damage - cut an (early stage) embryo in half, and one gets identical twins. The cells are sufficiently undifferentiated to replace one another. Still, there's a signigicant rate of cellular death from freeze-thaw (annectotal claim). I don't know abou the dog heart, but striated muscle and vasculature seem too structured to survive (current) freeze-thaw treatments.rmbh 20:55, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

--I haven't heard the dog story, sorry. Embryos are very small, as is sperm, and seeds, the other things commonly frozen. Seeds naturally resist freezing and extreme cold. Sperm and embryos are soaked in nontoxic antifreezes that drive out water, and then cooled until they become glassy (vitrified). They never form the ice crystals that damage frozen tissue. They are recovered by an inverse process that warms them, and reintroduces water. This process could in theory be performed on any size of biological specimen, but in practice it's too hard to control all the variables. Current state of the art is about able to freeze human kidneys and recover them. Cryonics organizations claim that they can vitrify human heads. They also say that they cool things below the glass transition temperatures, so that things crack (which doesn't sound good).

The rule of thumb in an emergency room is that a cold person isn't dead until they are warm and dead, because so many people have been resuscitated after drowning under ice, and remaining in the water for long periods. Dogs have been cooled to 4C (refrigerator temperatures), left that way for several hours and resuscitated without apparent harm. Arctic fish and hibernating hamsters can be frozen solid, then revived in a microwave oven. I saw this done with a hamster, and the little guy was not a happy camper.

The dog story doesn't sound realistic. Perhaps they moved the heart from one dog to another, frozen or vitrified in the middle. I believe the rest, but the hamster story sounds like an urban legend. Can you back it up? - Omegatron 22:14, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

I may have been thinking of this. "In 1984, Alcor and Cryovita laboratoraties began a pioneering series of experiments to demonstrate that large animals (dogs) could survive up to 4 hours of "total body washout" (TBW) and maintenance at a temperature only 4°C above the freezing point of water." - Omegatron 03:49, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Embryo vs. tissue cryopreservation

User:NamfFohyr (oddly signing as "rmbh") yesterday wrote elsewhere on this page:

Embryos are small enough to be infused with cryoprotectants. They are also rebust to cellular damage - cut an (early stage) embryo in half, and one gets identical twins. The cells are sufficiently undifferentiated to replace one another. Still, there's a signigicant rate of cellular death from freeze-thaw (annectotal claim). I don't know about the dog heart, but striated muscle and vasculature seem too structured to survive (current) freeze-thaw treatments.rmbh 20:55, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

There are a few misconceptions in this comment. The size of an object is irrelevant to how well it can be "infused with cryoprotectants" if it has a vascular system. Cryobiology does not need to rely on passive diffusion of cryoprotectants into organs any more than humans need rely on passive diffusion of glucose through skin to nourish all our cells. Also, numerous organized tissues have . --Ben Best 02:37, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

been successfully frozen, up to and including dog intenstines and sheep ovaries despite cell losses associated with freezing. The ability of frozen intestines to resume peristalsis shows that even muscle can sometimes survive freezing with adequate cryoprotection. Finally, your comment might leave the impression that freeze-thaw treatments comprise the entire arsenal of cryobiology, when in fact vitrification is the most promising type of cryopreservation for complex organs in which survival of all cells is critical. Having said all that, the original context of your comment, the frozen dog heart claim made by South Africans in 1995 and 1996, is generally regarded in cryobiology as a mistaken claim. Cryobiologist 23:36, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the name shift is very odd. How odd that I sign with my initials. I should not need to adress your insinuations that a shift in my signature is suspicious. I think you use such ad hominem tactics because you want to discredit myself, also manifest in your attempt to show the "misconceptions" in my post. I don't mind being wrong sometimes (or being corrected) because I'm a research scientist, not some sort of cryo-activist or cryo-technician. I make no claims about "the entire arsenal of cryobiology" because, as I said, I do not speak for the cryo-pseudoscientists. I have worked with genetically modified mice and know about the preparation and care of embryo stocks. I'm here to limit the hacks' ability to corrupt Wikipedia.

--My comment was made in the context of the FACT that embryos can be frozen and thawed (and remain viable) which would seem to validate the host of speculations "cryobiologists" make. Obviously, one doesn't use perfusions with embryos (which may have no vascularization at all), so the presence of vasculature is irrelevant. Right? Completely irrelevant to the cryopreservation of embryos.

--Then Cryobiologist claims that intestines can undergo peristalsis after cryopreservation. What, the vascularization of intestines is relevant to the fact that muscle contraction can occur in a COMPLETELY DEAD TISSUE? People have been making dead muscle contract for hundreds of years! Cryobiologist, can you show that the thawed intestines are capable of growing new epithelium, selectively uptaking nutrients, or any other indication that they are actually alive? I don't suppose this intestine was in an actual organism, was it? Wanna cite something?

--Basic diffusion relationships all invoke volume; it's (in statistical mechanics) a fundamental extensive quanitity. I know a thing or two regarding the chemical physics of diffusion. You have buzzwords and slanderous innuendo. While I am ignorant to detailed differences between freezing and vitrification (admittedly, an important and legitimate area of research) when I try to clarify that cryopreserving an embryo and a heart are completely different endeavors, you act as if I'm here to debunk your entire field, as I could or would. Do you mean to imply that one can vitrify-thaw a mouse was current techniques (or as a logical elaboration of current physical biochemistry?) That is hardly the case! There is little consensus on the correct physical description of pure water (one that includes the supercooled regime and the hydrophobic effect), let alone what proteins do in saline in a test tube, let alone what they do with DNA in a nucleus or mitochondrion or chloroplast. Wikipedia is not a soapbox for what are, like it or not, marginal scientific ideas. I mean, with Google as your model of peer review (!?), and your jargon consisting of prefixing with "cryo" (as if [known] biological processes occurred at cryonic temperatures) how could I even feel threatened? Signed, tilde tilde tilde tilde rmbh 22:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I think we both need to calm down. Understand that my comment about your signature being odd comes on the heels of weeks of sockpuppet attacks on the Ben Best article in which it's been hard to figure out who is whom. Perhaps I shouldn't be so quick to assume your remarks were more general than they were, and you shouldn't be so quick to assume that I'm throwing around jargon. In my last comments, there wasn't a single word containing "cryo" that wasn't an established word in the mainstream field of cryobiology. And where did I ever say that Google was a model for peer review?

Your comments about diffusion being an extensive quantity suggest that I still haven't successfully communicated to you the role of vascular perfusion in cryoprotectant uptake. If an agent (glucose, oxygen, or a cryoprotectant) is being circulated through a vascular system, size of tissue plays no role in the rate of uptake. Only vascularization matters. The reasons whole mice can't be cryopreserved are more complex than size preventing cryoprotection. I will also respectfully say that if you don't know the difference between freezing and vitrification, then you have more reading to do about cryonics before you can dismiss the idea as marginal by any criteria other than popular opinion. The reference to the frozen and transplanted dog intenstine is the third paper in the list of papers on the page http://www.cryoletter.org/ Such results in no way imply that all types of muscle can be successfully cryopreserved with current methods, but they show there is no a priori reason to reject claims of successful complex tissue cryopreservation. Cryobiologist 21:44, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah; it's Best that cites Google. Sorry. I assumed that you ARE Best, (I still think so) but I suppose my comment seemed incoherent to a passer-by. And thanks for the laugh regarding the "established word[s] in the mainstream field of cryobiology." Anyways, you didn't really read my comments, otherwise you wouldn't STILL be talking about perfusion in the context of embryos, or the idea that I need to or want to debunk all of cryonics. I JUST DON'T CARE about what you have to say to me about your field; I'm not (and certainly others shouldn't be) going to get educated by a talk page on Wikipedia. You should accept that cryonics is marginal. I don't say that to "dismiss" it. Cryonics is certainly not mainstream. That's what marginal means - not central. Please lease leave comments on my talk page, if you want to further proselytize, as I like to carve turkeys in a more controlled setting. As well, myself dignifying this dialogue is damaging to the development of the article. You can get in your final word if you like, but I'm done with this thread. Others can re-involve me if they want input regarding how best to deconstruct pseudoscientific claptrap.rmbh 23:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

In citing Google, I was only making reference to popularity. High Google rankings are a noteworthy fact when you are assessing how widely read a piece of literature is on the internet. My claim is that my cryonics FAQ is the most widely read cryonics FAQ on the internet. This is hard to prove conclusively, but it is persuasive that "cryonics FAQ" in Google [1], Yahoo [2] and MSN [3] searches all yield my FAQ as the highest result. And as I mentioned the replacement of Tim Freeman's FAQ is acknowledged in the cryonics community at the CryoNet Homepage where "Ben Best's Cryonics FAQ" replaces "Tim Freeman's Cryonics FAQ" and by Tim Freeman himself [4]

I am NOT claiming that citing popularity on the internet is comparable to citing a peer-reviewed journal article any more than I would claim that the popularity of a novel means that the novel is good literature. But popularity does indicate noteworthiness, justifying coverage in an encyclopedia -- just as there are entries for politicians and rock stars who are not scientists. On the other hand, just because my cryonics FAQ is popular is not proof that the portions covering scientific issues have no scientific merit. No, I am not Cryobiologist, but if you assume we are lying my assertion is probably meaningless. --Ben Best 02:37, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

People who have been preserved

Maybe we could have a list of celebrities that have been preserved.

Already exists. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cryonically_preserved_people although someone needs to add an article about celebrity Dick Clair http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0163199/ Cryobiologist 20:38, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Changes to the opening paragraph

A key misunderstanding of the concept of cryonics arises from ambiguous or multi purpose use of the word death. A part of the current opening paragraph reads:

"The process is not currently reversible, and by law can only be performed on humans after legal death in anticipation that the early stages of clinical death may be reversible in the future (see information theoretical death)."

Quite good, but the use of the term "legal death" immediately followed by "clinical death" referring to the same entity may cause confusion in the mind of the reader (the “legal death” link also appears to lead to a page still waiting for an article with that title to be written).

It might be better to have the following instead:

"The process is not currently reversible, and by law can only be performed on humans after clinical death in anticipation that at least the early stages of such death (often also the point at which legal death is pronounced) may be reversible in the future (see information theoretical death for key rationale behind this assertion)."

Some benefits of this: A. only one term is used "clinical death" B. it neatly introduces the idea that clinical death may, or may not be conflated with legal death and C. using the term "such death" indicates that there may be more than one type of death (true). It may be preferable that the word death (as in "early stages of such death" be surrounded in single quotes i.e. 'death', but that may be deviating too much from the NPOV criteria

Theo75 19:36, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

The new sentence is barely readable, especially with those long parenthetical comments. To address the concerns you raised, I propose:

The process is not currently reversible. Cryonics can only be performed on humans after clinical death, and a legal determination that further medical care is not appropriate (legal death). The claimed rationale for cryonics is that the process may be reversible in the future if performed soon enough, and that cryopreserved people may not really be dead by standards of future medicine (see information theoretic death).

Cryobiologist 21:12, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, agreed. I'll alter it in line with your proposal.

Theo75 13:12, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Cryobiologist 17:49, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Missing Subject - financial inheritance problems

On thing that seems to be missing from the article is a discussion of the financial status of any future revivee. As far as I am aware, when you die, all your assets are farmed out to your nearest and dearest or, failing that, go to the State. So once you die, you're not only dead, you're dead broke.

Or can you leave money to yourself in the future? If you could, that would imply you could avoid paying inheritance tax since your fortune would never actually be disbursed. It looks like you'd not only beat Death, but Taxes too! --Oscar Bravo 11:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The last article in the External Links section at the bottom, "A Cold Calculus Leads Cryonauts To Put Assets on Ice," discusses this issue. 76.169.201.183 17:40, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

corpsicle

"and is sometimes called a "corpsicle" (a portmanteau of "corpse" and "popsicle")"

I think it's funny, and should be included, with an example of someone who calls them that. - Omegatron 22:13, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

the word is used in Vernor Vinge sci-fi books, for instance, when they travel in hibernation interstellar distances. - Omegatron 22:59, May 14, 2005 (UTC)

I've added this information, with a short researched history of the term, to the article, as corpsicle redirects here and there was no use of the word in the article at all! -dmmaus 03:05, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Larry Niven & probably Jerry Pournelle use the term, and further derive from it "Copsic", a term of abuse that implicitly compares its victim to a revived human who lacks any legal rights as a person. Some of their stories are premised on the state treating such people as slaves -- IMO doing a fine job of highlighting the absurdity of our contemporaries who see a personally desirable outcome from cryopreservation as likely, in spite of the unpredictability of the selfish incentives affecting future societies. In the category

Shortest Knock-off of "I Want to Scream but I Have No Mouth"

how would you rank a short story built around "I might wake up as a jihadi anti-personnel weapon, controlled through the pain centers of my brain"?
--Jerzy•t 20:00, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I should have checked here before adding the corpsicle info in the mass culture section. I should have suspected that there'd been a previous attempt to add it and discussion. I understand that people who have hopes for cryonics might find the term offensive or at least disrespectful, but the wide use of the term requires at least a reference here, I think. Hopefully people will agree that it is appropriate having it here in the culture section, rather than in the substantive discussion of the subject. I'll add a link to the article corpsicle and a notation that the term is offensive to some. --JohnPomeranz 20:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Discussion of the history of "corpsicle" belongs in the corpsicle article, not the cryonics article. It's a purely fictitious term that has never been used in the real world. The encylopedic significance of the term itself is questionable, IMHO. Cryobiologist 07:40, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the opinion, Cryobiologist. You might convince me (and I'm certainly not going to edit war over it), but I do have a question... Although you may be right that the term isn't widely used outside of fiction, it is widely used in fiction by significant authors (e.g. Pohl, Niven, Pournelle, Vinge, and others) and a Google search on the word gets over 11,000 hits. (A significant number of these Google hits seem to be about a band of that name I'd never heard of, and others are various links to WP, but there are still more substantive links in which cryonic patients are referred to using the term, with or without acknowledgment of its potentially offensive overtones.) In light of that, I'm not sure how a section of this article about "Cryonics in mass culture" can or should fail to acknowledge the term. Should we delete this whole section, and, if not, aren't we obligated to include at least a brief discussion of the word? (I am reminded of the decades-long fight among science fiction fans over whether and how to use the term "sci-fi" to refer to the genre or, more seriously, significant debates in this country about preferred or abhored terms to refer to various racial and ethnic minorities. Words do matter.)

--JohnPomeranz 20:41, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. An analogy might be helpful. The word kike has appeared in countless works of fiction and in real life as an epithet against Jews. It has more than two million Google hits. Would it be appropriate to discuss the etymology and usage of "kike" in the Jews in Mass Culture section of an article about Judaism or Jews? I think not. Cryobiologist 03:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I was trying to make that point without actually using such an epithet, CB, but perhaps an actual epithet's use was necessary to make the potential emotional impact clear. The question is: Is the term here more like such a hate word or is its usage generally more benign. You say they are analogous, and you (I gather from your handle) are something of an expert in this area. I readily admit that I am not. I do note, that when I google racial or ethnic epithets, most of the hits are to sites promoting patent racism, anti-semitism, etc. When I google the term under discussion here, I do not seem to be similarly directed to groups that despise or mock cryonics. To me, this seems to undercut your analogy. Furthermore, the usages of the word in the SF works don't seem (IMHO) to be loaded with an equivalent amount of hatred. Do the rest of you reading this share CB's sense? I'm looking for a sense of the group here.

--JohnPomeranz 17:22, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Frog

There is a natural example of this. There is a certain species of frog that freezes completely during winter - a hibermation of sorts. The heart ceases to beat and the frog is effectively in a state of suspended animation. I remember hearing that its body produces a form of 'antifreeze' to prevent breakage of cells. When the spring comes, the frog thaws and a chemical is released that causes the heart to restart, the frog returns to life none the worse for wear. Unfortunately I cannot recall the specific frog - anyone else know about this? - Mike

Found an article on google: [5] -Beefnut 01:08, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Non-Partisan, NPOV Symbol of Cryonics would NOT be an Alcor dewar

I believe that a dewar with ALCOR in bold letters is inappropriate as a neutral symbol of cryonics. It favors the organization ALCOR as representative of cryonics and is thus "partisan". The exact same image can be found on the Alcor Life Extension Foundation page. Using the bias section of the NPOV page (Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Bias) I would conclude that the dewar image violates NPOV in both favoring the "class" of Alcor cryonicists as well as in serving as advertising for Alcor in contrast to other cryonics organizations. I would remove the image, except that as President of the Cryonics Institute I have an obvious bias myself. Therefore, I request that a fair-minded Wikipedian -- cryonicist or not -- remove the image. I don't know what a NPOV image of cryonics might be, but I believe that no image is better than an image that favors one organization and is a form of advertising. --Ben Best 03:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Dog

I remember recently hearing of a case where a dog was perserved then brought back within an extended period of time frame to prove that cryostasis as a science has come a long way. Why is there no reference to this? A brief search of the net shows many instances where various animals, including mammals, have been preserved, thawed and successfully survived? 211.30.75.123 00:08, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Those instances were all at temperatures at or above 0 degrees Celsius, the freezing point of water. There have been no revivals of large animals from ultra-cold temperatures required for long-term preservation. All evidence supporting cryonics is still indirect and based on preservation of enough brain information to permit hypothetical repair and resuscitation in the distant future. 76.169.201.183 03:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

GA : On hold

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   a (fair representation): b (all significant views):

5. It is stable.

   

6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.

   a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):

7. Overall:

   a Pass/Fail:

This article is on the verge of failure but with a reasonable amount of input could meet GA requirements. Try to address the following points for improvement:

• Lede: Should comply with MOS.
• Ethics: Citation needed
• History: Section is uneccessarily long, and still in places reads as if it has been written ALCOR.
• Culture: This section contains more detail than the article demands. Be more selective in what is mentioned.
• Images: Surely something suitable must be available to break the flow of the text.

Verisimilus T 20:03, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I've attempted to address all points, except for images, which will require a bit more time. Cryobiologist 06:47, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

GA: Not successful

A substantial amount of material that should be cited, is not. Beginning right in the first paragraph (US legal requirements) to the end of the lede (sizes of non-profits and the number of cryopreserved at each) to the "Premises of Cryonics" (reversibility of cellular cooling) and on throughout the article. The general writing style could also benefit from revision, making this long and complex topic easier to read and understand. Earlier concerns about NPOV persist. And I have doubts about the licensing of the image in this article; for it to be released by Alcor under Creative Commons may require confirmation of that release with OTRS. I'm certain this article can meet the standards of GA someday, but it has been trapped at GAC too long ... and that day is still not today. Serpent's Choice 21:32, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

As I also started a review, here are my issues: Please read the manual of style as 1) section headers Are Not Like This, but Like this (at least one was like that). 2) Citations go after the punctuation, not before and in the case of the sub-section "Revival" they do not have a comma both before and after. Basically this article needs a good copy edit to weed out those mnor details. Please note that my detailed review was only through the first section, after that I went to put it on hold and discovered it was already on hold. Aboutmovies 21:39, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

My refusal of membership with the cryonics institute

I wonder if it would be possible to talk about my membership refusal with the cryonics institute, I am the only man in the world, to have been refused twice a cryonics membership. --Despres 10:15, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so. Try somewhere else, as you cannot really prove this. Auroranorth 07:35, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

question!!

can someone have cryonics done on them, if they die of old age? and also, can you be an organ donor, and still have cryonics done on you? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.14.212.60 (talk) 01:59, 7 November 2007 (UTC) Old Age: Absolutely. Many of CI, Alcor's, and the American Cryonics Society's patients have "died" of old age. The tenant belief is that any technology suitable advanced to cure preservation damage should also be able to fix something as trivial as aging.

Organ donation is a little trickier. The time they keep your body alive by artificial means is usually considered to be damaging to your brain. So the general answer to this question is no.. ..ElizabethGreene 16:55, 09 Feb 2008 (CST)

Section Proposal

Cloning tissue regeneration —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.82.162.153 (talk) 12:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

please add 3 traps of cryonics on the page as the actual financial situation in cryonics

3 cryonics traps envisioned by Charles Platt:

Trap #1. "Our organization needs help. If you do your thing instead of helping us, you will weaken us. If we collapse, you will have nothing. Therefore, you should NOT COMPETE WITH US." (This seems to be what Jordan is thinking.) I call this "The Whining Monopoly Scenario" since the organization seeks to preserve a monopoly of its market segment by whining about its delicate condition.

Trap #2. "Our organization cares for cryonics patients who must be protected at all costs. If you criticize our organization or reveal embarrassing facts, you will empower hostile legislators or others who will try to shut us down. Therefore, you should say NOTHING NEGATIVE ABOUT US." I call this "The Perpetual Hostage Scenario," since the cryonics patients are serving exactly the same role as hostages.

Trap #3. "You'll be dead before you have time to build a new organization to save yourself." I guess the only answer there would be to establish your organization as a cult and surround yourself with young acolytes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.122.195.133 (talk) 04:16, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

preservation of consciousness humans body

is this also cryonics? need to be human unconsciousness to preserve? this is interesting due to increasing time spend behind computer. you can find some research on www.izobrazba.naspletu.com/learn.html (check virtuality and longevity) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Expertjohn (talk • contribs) 14:56, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Acceptance of cryonics

Has any research or study been done to determine why cryonics is not more widely accepted?Cecelia Hensley 16:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Because it hasn't been proved to work? See this link. Cryobiologist 16:39, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

i hope for them it doesn't prohibit reincarnation,:D, it's got something of "this person is not dead yet" when the brain is thoroughly intact, what an awfull way to experience your fear for death. I think that it's so awfull is the reason there is no book about this, only the 100th ape horror movies. How can you describe the horror what comes about when people start waking up from these selfinduced comas with a slight but never leaving memory of ages of longing? not funny;)24.132.170.97 (talk) 05:29, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Companies performing the cryogenic suspension.

Maybe a list of all the companies that perform cryogenic suspension, and the countries that they are in would be most helpful.Zorro444 (talk) 09:41, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

"Suspension" is an archaic and misleading term. Better to say "cryogenic storage" or simply "cryostorage" or even "cryogenic cryopreservation". The companies are listed here Comparing Procedures and Policies --Ben Best (talk) 21:19, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Couldn't someone qualifyed write an section about "chritisism" on cryonics? Since many scientists consider this a pseudo-science, I think it would be appropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.108.22.114 (talk) 21:46, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

NPOV?

This article reads like an advertisement for cryonics. I'd like to see someone putting some scientific discussion about the feasibility of whether or not any of these advances can ever actually happen. Hewhorulestheworld (talk) 05:01, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I should put Advert template on this page

Hewhorulestheworld Is right. I just got done reading this page and thought... Wow there is no other point of view. Maybe just about one sentence, and that was about Information-theoretic death. And the whole "Obstacles to success" section I felt was written by Alcor. Maybe this article needs to be cleaned up and locked, being that its a ongoing subject. By the looks of this talk page a lot of us feel the same. Tim1337 (talk) 09:06, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Reviews and Youtube among external links

99.22.95.61 (talk) recently added the following to the "External links" section:

• Penn and Teller Call BS on the Cryonics Scam
• Grossman, W.M. (February 14, 2008) "Patients who are frozen in time" Guardian.co.uk
• Smith, A.U. (1957) "Problems in the Resuscitation of Mammals from Body Temperatures Below 0°C" Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 147(929):533-544 (14 pages.) Excerpt: "Two of the galagos [rhesus monkeys] regurgitated and inhaled bicarbonate from the stomach during administration of artificial respiration. The other two galagos which had been treated with bicarbonate and then frozen for 45 minutes seemed to make an excellent recovery after thawing. One of them regained an appetite as well as normal posture and behaviour. Within 24 hours they both died. At post mortem the stomach was normal, but in one animal the duodenum and jejunum contained bloodstained fluid. In both instances there was oedema of the lungs and froth in the trachea. This may have been a terminal event. Survival may have been limited by some other physico-chemical or physiological derangement which, if diagnosed, might well have been susceptible to treatment. It was therefore decided to postpone further experiments on freezing the larger mammals until the effects on other organs of freezing in vivo and in vitro were better understood." (p. 538)
• Choi, J. and Bischof, J.C. (2009) "Review of biomaterial thermal property measurements in the cryogenic regime and their use for prediction of equilibrium and non-equilibrium freezing applications in cryobiology" Cryobiology, in press; review. Excerpt: "It is well accepted in cryobiology that the temperature history and cooling rates experienced in biomaterials during freezing procedures correlate strongly with biological outcome.... Further studies are needed to extract thermal properties of other important biomaterials in the subzero temperature domain and to develop accurate numerical methods which take into account non-equilibrium cooling events encountered in cryobiology when partial or total vitrification occurs." (abstract; emphasis added)
• Ma W., et al. (2006) "Cryopreservation of adherent neuronal networks" Neuroscience Letters, 403(1-2):84-9. Excerpt: "Here is the first report on cryopreservation of mammalian adherent neuronal networks." (abstract)

I moved them here, because I don't think this is in line with WP:EL. If these articles are relevant (and I'm not disputing that they are), they should be summarised and integrated as prose into the article, not simply pasted in the "external links" section. Gabbe (talk) 16:09, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

While the last three might be of interest to cryonics researchers, they don't themselves draw an explicit connection with cryonics. It's important that no attempt to draw a connection in the body text contravene WP:OR. ciphergoth (talk) 23:00, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

balance?

To its detractors, the justification for the actual practice of cryonics is unclear, given present limitations of preservation technology.

Are there any notable cryonic sceptics at all? I don't see any cited. Now I'm very much ignorant of this subject, but am I wrong to expect more scepticism on Wikipedia than just this one lonely unattributed sentence? --99.245.206.188 (talk) 08:06, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Cryonics is a far better article than this one. The first citation in this article has made it a laughingstock for years. I am placing a dispute tag. 99.22.95.61 (talk) 05:43, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I have searched the world for the best anti-cryonics writing I can find, and put the results on my blog. ciphergoth (talk) 12:24, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Nice discussion there! I've requested a Science Citation Index search on a couple of the more respectable articles I could find. Let's hope there's a good peer reviewed literature review in the results. This is my first attempt at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request (because I can't get to the university library today.) The SCI/Web of Science has almost never failed to defuse huge amounts of controversy in my experience. 99.22.95.61 (talk) 21:17, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

That was fast! I'm adding the most interesting citations in the ELs. 99.22.95.61 (talk) 23:36, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Why is there a dispute tag? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.138.133.95 (talk) 14:03, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Looking at the NPOV guidelines, I have to break cryonics into its two phases. 1. Cryopreservation of ultrastructure. The information is being preserved. That is verifiable and clearly supported by research. Mainstream science does not dispute this, although they disagree about its significance. 2. Reanimation in x years. Not pseudoscience, because it does not violate any laws of physics. But very speculative because the technology may never exist. It's discussion of step two that people object to.

The transhumanism page has a Controversy section with an Infeasibilitly subsection. Predicting the future is usually outside the scope of mainstream science. The revival section on the current cryonics page really is the sticky point and must represent a NPOV regardless of any optimism. I suggest a rewrite of the Revival section, possibly even renaming it to "Infeasibility" and moving it to a higher level. Jordansparks (talk) 22:19, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

The newly added second paragraph now contains, "...Cryonics is therefore regarded with skepticism by most scientists and physicians..." This is a vast improvement in balance. I withdraw my suggestion to create an infeasibility section.Jordansparks (talk) 17:40, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Subculture of cryonicists

I deleted the first paragraph under the "subculture of cryonicists" subheading. It was riddled with requests for citation and seems highly indicative of a combination of non-NPOV edits, original research, speculation, and generalization. The other two paragraphs are fine, but I don't think the first added anything encyclopedic to the article. Of course, I'm open to objections and reverts/edits if anyone wants to glean what they can from the paragraph and possibly merge it with the other two. --207.224.56.47 11:52, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I hope nobody's offended that I deleted the whole section. I've been hoping for years that someone else would do it. Now that the history section is looking so nice, the subculture section seemed redundant and poorly written.JordanSparks 18:10, 9 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jordansparks (talk • contribs)

Fish

Saltwater has a lower freezing point than fresh water, so it can regularly reach below 0 degrees in polar regions. Saltwater fish, however, undergo active phsiological process to keep their salt concentrations below that of the ocean, so that they would freeze in liquid water.

As a result, there are species of icewater fish that use the same mechanisms as the frog example. The biological antifreeze molecules are called AFP's (Anti-Freeze Proteins) and AFGP's (Anti-Freeze Glyco Proteins), with the latter of the two being more efficient.

They are difficult for us to extract/synthesize, but if we genetically engineered humans to produce AFGP's in their own cells, those individuals could theoretically be easily frozen and revived. They'd also never have to worry about frostbite.

'Course, then their body might decide that a cold winter is "time to shut down" and they fall over in the middle of the street, or better yet, while driving :P I'm all for cryogenics, I just think nanobots will be a "safer" answer, albeit a longer one in coming :) -Moocats 21:21, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, that would actually require another genetic modification, namely means to shut down thermoregulation mechanisms and allow metabolism to slow down to a state of suspended animation instead of going to hypothermic shock. That would mean effectively turning humans into cold blooded animals... :Arny (talk) 08:16, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Removed POV template

I've removed February's POV template. Various people seem to feel that the article is biased, but there's no evidence of edit warring or any actively pursued POV dispute. If there's no-one prepared to actually edit the article to strengthen the case against, it'll stay the way it is. ciphergoth (talk) 10:06, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Dogmatic Tone

It is suggested that the instances where this article approaches dogmatic tone, should be corrected. Statements should be limited to what is verifiable. Such expressions as "we know" are pretentious pseudoscientific rhetoric. Statements like "most scientists . . ." require a great amount of proof. Has the author defined who is a scientist and then polled them? Statements like "medical science is not interested in what is theoretically possible" are ridiculous. (EnochBethany (talk) 19:24, 2 November 2010 (UTC))

Your point is well-taken. I am thinking that I may overstated the case in my recent edit of 207.216.53.147 by calling it "vandalism", when it is more a matter of imposing a POV. That edit was misleading insofar as it implied that vitrification in cryonics does not eliminate freezing, and "dangerously toxic" seems like intentional exaggeration. The claim of "Minor cleanup for readability and structure" seems intentionally false, however. The former version was very readable and more clear than the revision. If 207.216.53.147 want to argue the point, I invite her or him to do so her. GirlForLife (talk) 19:11, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Cryonics in mass culture

This section is getting out of hand. It begins by saying, "Procedures similar to cryonics have been featured in innumerable science fiction stories." Indeed, listing them all explicitly would dwarf the rest of the article. One need only look at the article on suspended animation to see the farce that can result from such a listing. (Perhaps someday someone will break off fictional instances of suspended animation into its own list or article.) To save the cryonics article from a similar fate, I've deleted apparent fictional instances of cryonics that are not actually cryonics (cryopreservation for medical purposes) or where cryonics is just a minor plot element. Cryobiologist 21:41, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I know recent contributors mean well, but this article is already beyond the Wikipedia size limit, and like the suspended animation article suffers from the problem that many more people know about fictional instances of the subject than the real subject. Imagine an article about heart transplants where everybody contributed their recollections of TV shows and books that featured heart transplants. If the mass culture section doesn't confine itself primarily to depictions of cryonics close to real cryonics, which is a small number of depictions, the size will quickly become unreasonable. Last year an editor (not me) deleted the entire fiction section of the suspended animation article for this reason. It only started rebuilding recently, and will probably get tossed again when it gets too big. Keeping the focus tight makes for a better article, and less temptation for slash-and burn edits and outright deletions. Cryobiologist 08:04, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I Agree, this is a problem that really plagues Wikipedia... :Arny (talk) 08:26, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

A separate article on cryonics in fiction might be the way to go, as a way of allowing room to explain whether or not these fictional sources have anything to add to the subject. Some of them simply use it as a plot device, but IMHO it does a disservice to unintentionally ignore works that explore some of the ramifications and challenges of the technology.MythicFox (talk) 20:42, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. Why don't you start a "Cryonics in fiction" entry? --Ben Best (talk) 21:34, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm nowhere near qualified to put together such an article. I'm just chiming in on the discussion.MythicFox (talk) 16:26, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

-=-=-=--=--=

Statement: The most famous would be the cryostasis of Han Solo in Star Wars by the notorious bounty hunter Boba Fett

Issue: This is unsupported and appears to be a conclusion of the author.

199.244.214.59 (talk) 17:26, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Cryonics in popular culture

Maybe it would be nice to add "Dead Space 2." Dead Unitolgists are preserved in cryo chambers.--195.252.65.136 (talk) 19:43, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

walt disney cryonics urban legend

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney#Death

perhaps this should be addressed somewhere in this article — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.81.199.45 (talk) 21:34, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

See the last paragraph of the article. SBHarris 20:12, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

"Neuropreservation is motivated by the mainstream medical view..."

"Neuropreservation is motivated by the mainstream medical view that the brain is the primary repository of memory and personal identity" This would seem to be excessive skepticism to me. I think it's pretty safe to say that the brain is in fact the only repository of "memory and personal identity". This suggests that there are those outside the mainstream (which could include a substantial number of people) who would disagree. Is there any dissent on this issue worthy of consideration? --4of11 04:19, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that your point is well-taken. What do you suggest? "Neuropreservation is motivated by the fact that the brain is the primary repository of memory and personal identity" ? --Ben Best 05:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I made the change suggested by Ben Best. Cryobiologist 00:37, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

You might want to use some caution, though. Of course the brain is the abode of mind, but people keep trying to evade this fact because it implies that death is truly the end. It's been a constant problem in the article Consciousness after death. Everything Is Numbers (talk) 19:43, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Why Freezing?

If one assumes the future existence of medical nanomachines and tissue culture capable of repairing cell damage on the synaptic level, purging toxins and regenerating whole organs from scratch, why not just have your brain pickled in alcohol? (You know, like Einstein.) It would be far cheaper, wouldn't involve damage from freezing, would be just as effective at preserving synaptic anatomy, and you wouldn't need to worry about thawing when the power cuts out.

(Of course, there might well be significant chemical damage inflicted in the process, but is this information loss likely to be more severe than what current cryoprotectants entail? Just a thought.) 37.203.193.19 (talk) 20:06, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Einstein's brain was preserved in sections in a 10% formalin solution. Look up the cytotoxicity of formaldehyde; it is vastly more damaging than any combination of cryoprotectants and vitrification solutions used in Cryonics. The method you described does not stop long-term degeneration (indeed, it sets off new kinds of damage processes); vitrification not only arrests (any and all) biological activity, molecular motion essentially ceases. What you might want to look into instead as an arguably more feasible alternative to cryonics is chemopreservation, plastination, etc. Taurus (talk) 14:24, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Apple

Noticed something interesting... letting a frozen apple melt results in a very mushy fruit. It seems that the fibrous structure of the apple is damaged by water expansion in a similar manner as that experienced by a cellular organism. mnemonic 16:10, 2004 Jun 26 (UTC)

Slow-cooling without cryoprotective agents ("straight-freeze") results in ice crystal formation in-between cells; due to the osmotic extraction of intracellular water, tissue is essentially squashed by ice crystals (as opposed to being burst). Please bear in mind that Cryonics has always been predicated on the use of cryoprotectants (under a wide variety of conditions) going back to the cryopreservation of James Bedford in 1967. The optimal outcome of modern protocol is near-total vitrification using modern solutions developed within the past decade. Taurus (talk) 14:51, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Freeze apples, but better vitrify your brain... Marcus Beyer 23:30, 2004 Jun 26 (UTC)

Will keep that in mind, in more ways than one. mnemonic 10:29, 2004 Jun 27 (UTC)

Financial cost of revival

I have deleted the last paragraph in the "Revival" section as it is unsourced, lacks citations as noted, and is not conducive to conciseness. The author has misused the word "paradox." The author is evidently providing original, unpublished ideas (ie "original research"); Who claims that revival will necessarily be expensive? How is this assumption supported? The paragraph does not conform to a neutral point of view, as is evident in its biased tone, eg "all those people," "this faulty model" (in bold).

However, some critics suggested a paradox that currently remains unanswered by cryonics institutions: If revival will ever be possible in the future, it is likely to be an extremely complicated process. No cryo-companies are currently able to explain the financial model that will fund such an expensive process. This means that even if revival becomes possible, it is very unlikely that anyone could ever afford or choose to afford, reviving all those people. A good example of this faulty model can be seen by looking at plan prices at Alcor's website. While “neuropreservation” costs merely $80,000, whole body preservation costs $200,000. However, the problem is that in order to revive a neuropreservation patient, entire body replacement is required, a process which could in itself cost more than body “repair”.

The style, tone, and unsourced nature of this paragraph set it apart from the rest of the article specifically and Wikipedia standards generally. Taurus (talk) 03:12, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

The problem with prediction is that it's very hard, especially regarding the future (Niels Bohr). It's more or less a given that repair and reanimation of a cryopreserved person will be physically complicated. What isn't known is how expensive it will be compared with a day's labor, or even if "a day's labor" will mean anything in that time. In a completely automated future, money and individual power to do things may not resemble anything in the present. Indeed, cryonics will not succeed until there are radical changes in technology to make the reanimation process "cheap." Think of a human DNA sequence, which costs millions for the first one, but now is only a few thousand per person, and is headed toward $100 or even $10 a person in the next 20 years. Present cryonics costs are geared on a completely "present" model of how much it costs to keep tissue at liquid nitrogen temperature over the long term. That is something that is easy to model, and it is the source of the costs quoted above. However, the reanimation process can't be modeled by anything of the sort, since it's just too far in the future.

Suppose you'd asked how much to clone your pet cat in 1995. The answer would have been "Infinite, since has never been done for a mammals and maybe never will be." But the answer was different in 2008, when it was only $30,000. Then the clones didn't look like the originals and the companies went broke. We have maybe 10 cat clones but at this moment you might not even be able to find somebody to do it for a million dollars. But it's routine for pigs at a few thousand. [6] See the point? Biotech futurology is tricky. SBHarris 03:57, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

How to Reboot Your Corpse

Karlin, Susan (March 2010). "How to Reboot Your Corpse". IEEE Spectrum. Retrieved 2013-05-03.

--Bob K31416 (talk) 02:51, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

What's the point of adding a section devoted to a brief article written in 2010? There have been countless such articles written about cryonics since the 1960s. You could have linked to any of the countless other articles written in the years since this one was published. Taurus (talk) 14:42, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Taurus, Pardon me. I had come across this article and thought it might be useful. If you don't think so. Fine. I'll leave now. --Bob K31416 (talk) 18:14, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Correct current scientific view of cryonics

Section added to discuss the current scientific view of cryonics, and what should be said in this article.

The third paragraph of the article now says "The future repair technologies assumed by cryonics are still hypothetical and not widely known or recognized. Although 62 scientists have supported the idea of cryonics in an Open Letter, many other scientists regard cryonics with skepticism." (references suppressed to aid clarity during discussion)

A more accurate statement would be "The future repair technologies assumed by cryonics are based on existing scientific laws, and have not yet been demonstrated. Despite this, 62 scientists have supported the idea of cryonics in an Open Letter. At the present time, there are no known technically valid reasons to believe that modern cryopreservation methods (when carried out under favorable conditions) cause information theoretic death, and all published articles in the scientific literature that directly address cryonics support its feasibility."

Adopting this wording is likely to be controversial. However, there are no claims in the scientific literature that even a straight freeze results in information theoretic death, let alone that a modern cryopreservation (with its careful introduction of cryoprotectants and vitrification of nerves and synapses) results in information theoretic death.

Further, the current state of the art in neuroscience quite firmly establishes that long term memory involves substantial changes in synapses, changes that would not be obliterated upon vitrification. See, for example, “Synapses and Memory Storage” by Mayford M, Siegelbaum SA, and Kandel ER. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, April 10, 2012, page 10 (see http://cshperspectives.cshlp.org/content/4/6/a005751)

The "skeptical" claims about cryonics are not in the scientific literature. They are in press accounts, or by individuals who appear on television or on radio, by individuals who make no technical arguments. They are unguarded statements that rather obviously cannot be supported. The statements that are actually in the scientific literature are either neutral or favorable to cryonics, or they have been shown to have major and rather glaring flaws. The reason for this is obvious to anyone who seriously considers what advanced technology is likely to able to do, and the level of damage that must be achieved if someone's medical condition is to be considered truly "irreversibly' beyond any future medical assistance.

"Critics" have had quite enough time to vent and make unsupported claims. It's time that we stick to the scientific rules, and state what is scientifically accurate: the existing scientific literature supports the feasibility of cryonics. Further, all the statements that cryonics won't work that have been made to date have been debunked.

If you can cite uncontested WP:RS reliable sources that state exactly what you want to put in the article, then we can put it in.

If anyone has any serious technical criticism, backed up by a reference to the scientific literature, let's have it. Otherwise, keep quiet.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by RMerkle (talk • contribs) 00:13, 20 April 2014 (UTC) 

"At the present time, there are no known technically valid reasons to believe that modern cryopreservation methods (when carried out under favorable conditions) cause information theoretic death": Do you have a good citation for this? The CSHPR paper doesn't mention cryo nor vitrification, and anyway I'm skeptical a journal that has the word "perspectives" in the title does a very rigorous peer review. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 05:48, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

"All published articles in the scientific literature that directly address cryonics support its feasibility": It's possible, but do you have a citation for this? Otherwise, it's not verifiable, as your fellow editors don't have time to review the entire literature to confirm whether that statement is true. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 05:48, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

"The statements that are actually in the scientific literature are either neutral or favorable to cryonics, or they have been shown to have major and rather glaring flaws." Been shown by who? It's not Wikipedia's job to adjudicate which contradictory statements in the peer-reviewed literature are correct. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 05:48, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

"If anyone has any serious technical criticism, backed up by a reference to the scientific literature, let's have it. Otherwise, keep quiet." There is a logical fallacy that may apply here, Burden of Proof. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof Also, asking other people to "keep quiet" looks harsh. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.16.64.187 (talk) 17:38, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

References to "cryonics" in PubMed are available from this link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?orig_db=PubMed&cmd=Search&defaultField=Title%20Word&term=cryonics

There are 11 references. Most discuss attitudes towards cryonics, the sociology of cryonics, the law concerning cryonics, editorialize about cryonics, or the like. There are 3 articles that directly address technical issues: "Vascular and neuronal ischemic damage in cryonics patients", "Scientific justification of cryonics practice", and "The technical feasibility of cryonics". All 3 of the articles that directly address cryonics speak favorably of its chances for success. The third says "The extant literature supports but does not prove the hypothesis that cryonics is a feasible method of saving the lives of people who would otherwise certainly die."

More recent efforts by Paul Crowley to find coherent criticisms of cryonics failed to find any. See http://blog.ciphergoth.org/blog/2010/02/14/an-open-letter-to-scientific-critics-of-cryonics/.

He said "Though many experts in cryogenics and other relevant fields are quoted in the media as condemning cryonics practice, none have written at greater length to explain their reasons. The closest thing to such a reason I can find is Michael Shermer’s article “Nano Nonsense and Cryonics”, but the reason he gave was one that he knew at the time of writing was contrary to scientific reality, and in response to my email asking where I could learn more he recommended three authors all of whom consider cryonics technically plausible." Note that Shermer's editorial appears in the PubMed references. An editorial is not a technical article, does not provide references, is not peer reviewed, and is generally acknowledged to offer simply an opinion. For anyone who might think Shermer's editorial had any significant technical arguments against the feasibility of cryonics, see http://www.alcor.org/press2001SciAm.html. Ralph, 2014-06-09 — Preceding unsigned comment added by RMerkle (talk • contribs) 12:43, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

RMerkle Thanks for the pointers to the three PubMed articles. The Merkle article in Medical Hypotheses was not peer-reviewed, so it doesn't carry much weight toward determining what the scientific consensus is. The two BP Best articles in Aubrey de Grey's Rejuvenation Research are presumably peer-reviewed, but Rejuvenation Research has been criticized as fringe according to its Wikipedia page, so I would say right now there's not a scientific consensus. If you have a quote from one of the BP Best articles, we can put that in as long as it's characterized as Best's opinion. I think long-term, the best solution is for Merkle, Best, or others to publish in a peer-reviewed mainstream journal if there's a scientific finding that cryonics is technically feasible; Wikipedia can't judge by itself whether that finding is correct in the absence of agreement in the scientific community. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 03:50, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

There is a scientific consensus. The published articles on cryonics speak in its favor, and, as you can see by perusing the articles on "cryonics" from PubMed, none provide technical arguments against it. Even those who beg for articles providing coherent technical criticisms of cryonics are unable to find them (see the quote from Crowley, above, and follow the link to his longer discussion). You might not like the consensus, but the fact remains there is a consensus, and the consensus is favorable. You might want a broader and more in-depth consensus, and you would receive strong support from the cryonics community on that. There would be more articles discussing cryonics in the standard scientific literature had the Society for Cryobiology not deliberately suppressed their publication (see COLD WAR: The Conflict Between Cryonicists and Cryobiologists, http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/coldwar.html). But, as Max Planck famously didn't say, "Science progresses, funeral by funeral". Progress happens, despite the best efforts of those who seek to prevent it.

Ralph C. Merkle, 2014-06-20

Again, there are no peer-reviewed articles besides two articles by one author in Aubrey de Grey's Rejuvenation Research, which isn't enough to establish consensus in the face of multiple scientists who have gone on the record (albeit in non-peer-reviewed publications), to oppose cryonics. The clause in the Society for Cryobiology's bylaws against its members promoting cyronics does seem anti-reason to me, but the clause actually provides evidence against the thesis that "there's currently a scientific consensus in favor of cryonics". Rolf H Nelson (talk) 22:13, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Science is supposed to involve reason. The scientists who support cryonics give their reasons, and cite sources, and (when they aren't prevented from doing so) publish their results in the usual places, and when they are prevented publish their results elsewhere. Yes, the Society for Cryobiology's bylaws do "seem anti-reason", and not just to you. I have seen the reasons for believing that cryonics should work, but I have not seen the reasons for believing that cryonics, when properly done, should not work. Nor have the scientists who oppose cryonics shared any coherent reasons, even when asked. The Scientist's Open Letter on Cryonics (see http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/scientists-open-letter-on-cryonics/) lists quite a few scientists who support cryonics. But the fact remains, properly written technical articles which reference the literature are given more weight than simple head-counts. The current scientifically supported view on cryonics is quite clear: it's likely to work. This view is arrived at by the standard method: reviewing the scientific literature on the subject. Your observation that the scientific literature on cryonics is small is noted, and is a good reason for encouraging further research. But the conclusion stands: the current scientifically accepted view of cryonics is that it seems likely to work. RMerkle — Preceding undated comment added 10:44, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Since you've done a literature search, what evidence is there besides the two articles from BP Best in Rejuvenation Research? Are there any direct quotes stating that cryonics is likely to work from any other peer-reviewed papers? Rolf H Nelson (talk) 16:45, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

The Society for Cryobiology bylaws say “… the Board of Governors may refuse membership to applicants, or suspend or expel members … engaged in or who promote … any practice or application of freezing deceased persons in the anticipation of their reanimation.”

Researchers who try to publish papers on cryonics have their papers rejected, their membership in professional societies threatened, their grants threatened, their salaries threatened, and their careers threatened. I know. I’ve talked with them. No, I won’t give you details.

And you’re asking me why there aren’t more articles on cryonics in the “regular” scientific literature?

RMerkle (talk) 02:56, 23 June 2014 (UTC) — RMerkle (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Section 9 Popular Culture Expansion Talk

I'm adding this section for the benefit of any future additions and talk, I was originally going to express my surprise that no mention of Buck Rogers in this article but I double checked and realized I was mistaken because this culturally important American fictional character was not subjected to any obvious form of cryogenic suspension at all but instead the the 1920s author chose to use the more "mysterious" phenomenon of radioactive energy as an explanation for a suspended animation state that preserved his character for centuries. Therefore the character has no obvious place in this article, but maybe its still a good idea to have a talk section for this part of the article for the benefit of future editors of the popular culture section since its very likely the subject will be depicted in more popular culture media in the future. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.239.87.234 (talk) 05:57, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

ON further review the movie serial of Buck Rogers story cited here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_Rogers_(serial) should probably be construed as a revision in the Buck Rogers story that involves cryogenics having been marooned in a blizzard in the arctic wastes in a crashed dirigible and surviving with an agent called "Nirvano Gas" which might even be construed as a fictional reference to an inadvertant cryoprotectorant solution in the plot. Being not a seasoned Wikipedia editor and not having any further interest in the matter(though it would seem important to me, , , I'll just leave this here. 71.239.87.234 (talk) 06:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

The continuing absence of technical articles critical of cryonics

It's worth noting that this Wikipedia article on cryonics has been here since 2001. After all that time, only a single article critical of cryonics is still being referenced: an article from National Geographic (see http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/03/0318_050318_cryonics.html).

That article has many errors. It says "Even proponents of cryonics, the practice of storing entire organisms (or at least their brains) for future revival, admit there is no scientific evidence that a cryopreserved human will ever be revived. No one even knows what technology would have to be developed to reverse the preservation."

Both statements are incorrect. There is a great deal of scientific evidence that supports the feasibility of cryonics, that has been published in many places, and which is readily available. The interested reader is referred to the Alcor FAQs at http://www.alcor.org/FAQs. There have also been many articles, books, presentations, discussions, etc. on nanomedicine, molecular nanotechnology, and their application to the revival of cryopreserved patients.

They quote a cryobiologist as saying "We are still unable to cryopreserve an intact organ such as a kidney or heart by either a freezing or vitrification approach" even though, at the time of publication, a rabbit kidney had been successfully cryopreserved and then used as the sole renal support of a rabbit (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781097/). This might charitably be called a convenient omission.

The article then quotes Rabin, a cryobiologist.

"Information is lost when the power of a computer is turned off, even if it's only an instantaneous event and even if no harm is done to the memory chips," Rabin said.

"On the other hand we know that harm is done to the memory cells in cryopreservation of biological materials, and we know that the lines of communication between memory cells are devastated and lost," he said.

Unfortunately for Rabin and the article, there has been extensive discussion of the information theoretic-criterion of death in the cryonics literature, and it is quite clear that long term memory involves multiple changes that are very unlike turning off power to a computer chip. In fact, they include a wide range of well documented changes to synapses that should be preserved by cryopreservation. To quote from a standard text:

“We know that secondary memory does not depend on continued activity of the nervous system, because the brain can be totally inactivated by cooling, by general anesthesia, by hypoxia, by ischemia, or by any method, and yet secondary memories that have been previously stored are still retained when the brain becomes active once again. Therefore, secondary memory must result from some actual alterations of the synapses, either physical or chemical.” — Textbook of Medical Physiology by Arthur C. Guyton (W.B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia, 1986), page 658.

After 13 years the best article critical of cryonics that has been advanced is not even from the scientific literature and it makes gross errors of fact. It makes no attempt to advance any kind of coherent argument or conclusion.

The simplest explanation for the failure to find any articles that provide arguments of any quality against cryonics is that there are no such articles. The only articles critical of cryonics that exist are, like the one cited here, filled with glaring factual errors (and usually a continuing stream of biased words and prejudices).

If you think there's an article hiding out there somewhere, then please cite it. But lacking such a citation, I think it's time to conclude that such an article, like unicorns and fire breathing dragons, is a mythological creature that doesn't exist.

RMerkle (talk) 13:39, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Cryonics is unscientific

Cryogenics is a scientifically proven process involving the successful freezing and thawing of materials without damage. Cryonics involves taking an already dead body and putting it in liquid nitrogen, and there's no scientific merit whatsoever. Source: The Forever People. -173.162.252.241 (talk) 21:06, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Plea for better references from the critics

Would the "critics" mind finding some better references, please?

The statement "However, many other scientists regard cryonics with skepticism" references a National Geographic article<ref>{{cite news|last=Lovgren|first=Stefan|title=Corpses Frozen for Future Rebirth by Arizona Company|url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/03/0318_050318_cryonics.html|accessdate=15 March 2014|newspaper=[[National Geographic (magazine)|National Geographic]]|date=18 March 2005|quote="Many cryobiologists, however, scoff at the idea..."}}</ref> that says: "Even proponents of cryonics, the practice of storing entire organisms (or at least their brains) for future revival, admit there is no scientific evidence that a cryopreserved human will ever be revived. No one even knows what technology would have to be developed to reverse the preservation."

There is lots of scientific evidence that a cryopreserved human can be revived. It's cited in the main Wikipedia article on cryonics. As a research scientist in molecular nanotechnology, which is the technology expected to revive cryopreserved patients, I find the statement that "No one even knows what technology would have to be developed to reverse the preservation" to be particularly bizarre.

It's also obvious that the cryobiologists being interviewed regard cracking or fracturing as irreparable damage. They say so. To quote the article cited as supporting "critics":

"One major fracture may prevent recovery of the brain as an organ," Rabin said. "We know that vitrification of large objects very frequently involves a huge number of micro-fractures as well."

This, of course, is amusingly inaccurate and merely shows these people have no idea what technologies will be available in the future to revive cryopreserved patients. We will, of course, be able to repair cracks and fractures. This is discussed in various references in the main Wikipedia article on cryonics.

There are, of course, other errors in the cited reference, but this gives the "critics" something to start with. Could you *please* find a reference which

1) Does not announce that "cryonics advocates" say this or that, when no one with any knowledge of the field has made any such statement.

2) Does not announce with false confidence and no evidence or citations that it is impossible to repair fractures.

3) Does not announce with false confidence and amusing inaccuracy that ice bursts cells.

4) Displays some understanding of the information theoretic definition of death.

5) Displays some minimal knowledge of nanotechnology. Perhaps has read Feynman's "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom". I guess it would be asking too much to demand that the supposed critic had actually read "Nanosystems" by Drexler? I suppose it's out of the question to ask that the "critic" has actually attended some of the relevant conferences on molecular nanotechnology. I know of no one with any knowledge of molecular nanotechnology who makes such foolish statements as "cryonics is impossible" or even "cryonics is unlikely".

6) Extra points if you find a critic who understands the relevance of cryptanalysis to cryonics. I'm not even demanding you find a critic who understands anything about cryptanalysis. I'm just asking that you find a critic who understands that it's relevant. You don't understand the relevance of cryptanalysis to cryonics? Google it. The paper was published in 1994. That's over 20 years ago, folks. If you're going to claim you're a critic, you should at least have read the relevant literature.

I realize asking for actual references from "critics" is so, so painful. Why, the burden of proof is on us! Unfortunately, it isn't. We're not making an extraordinary claim. We're not making any claim that's in the least surprising. The only thing we're claiming is that human long term memory is preserved, in the information theoretic sense, by cryopreservation. That is not an extraordinary claim. We're also claiming that, eventually, we'll be able to repair the brain. That is also not an extraordinary claim.

So that means we're talking about balance of evidence. And right now, there's a large pile of evidence that favors the feasibility of cryonics, and the "critics" of cryonics have got nothing. Bupkis. Zilch. Zip. Zero. Nada. The best you've got is an article from National Geographic that's making incoherent rambling claims that are patently false, and which cites cryobiologists who think fractures can prevent repair.

So, could you please find something that's a little bit better in quality?

Or pipe down and stop being so full of yourself? A little more modesty from people who have so much to be modest about would be appreciated.

RMerkle (talk) 21:55, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Should all citations be up to WP:MEDRS? (answer: yes, no, maybe, case by case)

WP:MEDRS is a very stringent standard of citation. The article is tagged by WikiProject Medicine ... and cryonics advocates (e.g. Alcor) describe it as a medical procedure. So do we need to go through the citations and bring them up to WP:MEDRS standards? Nothing speculative, nothing that implies speculative stuff, nothing scientifically non-standard ... @Doc James: thoughts? - David Gerard (talk) 11:04, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

• This seems to be sort of a mixed-use topic; there is a substantial popular culture section, and there are well-documented claims about cryonics that veer more into cultural than medical knowledge. While I think that it is important to distinguish popular claims from scientific claims, surely we can't expect popular claims to be cited beyond the usual standards of citation for such things in non-medical articles. bd2412 T 14:38, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Yeah. Is there any medical topic with a comparable cultural footprint? Cryonics' popularity as a fictional trope is vastly greater than e.g. the number of people cryopreserved or even signed up to be. And the fictional version has pretty much no relation to anything that happens at e.g. Alcor. Possibly it should be a separate article - David Gerard (talk) 18:31, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
    • Split out Cryonics in popular culture, then? There are reliable sources for the purpose that discuss cryonics as used in media such as Star Trek and Star Wars. bd2412 T 18:34, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
      • It's the sort of thing I'd expect good references to exist on the topic. I wouldn't go splitting it right now. (Did I just sign myself up for a pile of work? ...)
      • As for the referencing ... the non-pop-culture bits need firm referencing. There's a lot of fluff. e.g. the Benjamin Franklin bit I just removed, which the ref really doesn't support as having been an antecedent for cryonics as we know it (there must be some term for Wikipedia articles that do this: pick fragments from history to claim a longer tradition for an idea than the actual sourced and documented descent of the idea). Possibly I am wrong about MEDRS being something to apply widely to it. However, the section above from Ralph Merkle is IMO an example of how not to go - Wikipedia is not for speculation and OR, even enthusiastic OR that proponents consider very well-argued - David Gerard (talk) 19:30, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
        • If there are reliably sourced discussions of the arguments people make, that is a different matter than the science of whether (or how) cryonics work. Compare the Acupuncture#Conceptual basis section, which details what people have believed about acupuncture, in contrast to the earlier sections of the article which detail the scientific investigation of acupuncture. bd2412 T 14:26, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
          • Yeah, have to be case by case. So I suppose the answer to my question is "yes, but not necessarily, but maybe!" Currently looking for good pop culture critique of cryonics, to avoid mere lists - David Gerard (talk) 17:44, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
      • I would love to see the popular culture split out to a separate page. I wouldn't even call it cryonics. I don't see a single popular culture reference that is actually about cryonics. I propose calling it "Suspended Animation in Popular Culture". I'm going to start working on the new page in my user space. JordanSparks (talk) 22:02, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
        • +1 - David Gerard (talk) 09:30, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
        • Memory Alpha is a pop culture source with pages on Cryonics and [7]. It may not be a source that we can use, but maybe it can lead to some. bd2412 T 22:14, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
          • And Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, with both cryonics, cryogenics and corpsicle, for pointers to sources - David Gerard (talk) 09:30, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
      • Well, here it is. Suspended animation in fiction. I used inspiration from interstellar travel in fiction and magic in fiction for the format. I'll probably create the actual page later today, and then start chopping that information out of this cryonics page.JordanSparks (talk) 18:32, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
        • Nice one, thank you! - David Gerard (talk) 11:43, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Supercooled rats

[8] says, "Three rats were supercooled by immersion in a propylene glycol bath at -5° to -6° C in the third stage of cooling. Their colonic temperatures reached -2.1°, -2.9° and -3.3° C respectively. The lowest subcutaneous temperature recorded was -5.7° C (see Fig. 5). The longest period spent in the subzero range was 40 min in the instance of the rat revived after supercooling to the colonic temperature of -2.9° C. All three of the rats supercooled without crystallization were reanimated, recovered completely, and resumed growth. In eight out of nine animals that underwent crystallization in a propylene glycol bath at -7° C or below, heart beat and spontaneous breathing were re-established. All died, however, during the last stage of rewarming or within the first 24 hr after reanimation."

Does the [9] process prevent crystalization more reliably than propylene glycol? 50.141.113.17 (talk) 03:53, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

All citations don't need to be WP:MEDRS, for many reasons

Cryonics is not an accepted medical procedure, but more of a preclinical biomedical experiment, which is paid for by the body donors. Preclinical, as it has yet to have been tried on a living human. The scientific background for doing the experiment is in the science of cryobiology, cites about the abilities and limitations of which generally should meet WP:MEDRS. But this article contains a lot of other stuff about preservation of biological tissue ala plastination and mummy to which WP:MEDRS really doesn't apply because it is simply preserved tissue. There is also the pop culture stuff, and the various arguments for trying the experiment, to which WP:MEDRS doesn't apply either. If somebody advocates human whole body or even brain cryopreservation with the hope of possible future reanimation, they are sort of in the same pickle: the preclinical stuff is WP:MEDRS, but the arguments for trying it with human bodies and brains are essentially philosophical and can be published anywhere, as long as they meet WP:RS. That said, see reference 29, which was published in Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2004 Jun;1019:559-63, and did make the argument to do the experiment, in a refereed science journal. (COI note: I’m a coauthor on that one.)

Whether WP:MEDRS applies to this whole issue is a conundrum, because the experiment being described is exactly the experiment to see if cryonics is merely messing around with human brains ala plastination, or working with cryopreserved and possibly viable tissue, ala cryobiology. Is this tissue alive or dead? The question is meaningless because it cannot be answered objectively. It relies on future resuscitation abilities. Is a cryopreserved human embryo at the temperature of liquid nitrogen, "alive"? It has no metabolism. In what sense is it "alive"? In the medical world before human embryo implantation in the 1970’s, there was no way it could not possibly survive, and thus could be argued dead. However, if a hypothetical 1960’s embryo were preserved to the present day, technology has advanced to the point where it could be implanted and result in a viable and normal baby. So, today such things are alive, although not legal persons. But the thing itself did not change. It did not “become” alive. It was and is what it always was—we merely look at it differently.

To sum up, if cryonics is merely about complicated cryopreservation of “dead” tissue, ala plastination, it doesn’t need WP:MEDRS. But only the future can tell this. Meanwhile, without a scientific definition of death, the experiment and its tissues exist in limbo, like Schrödinger's cat. Whether some parts of it need WP:MEDRS citing, exists in the same limbo between alive-suspended and dead-preserved. How do we know which is appropriate treatment? It all depends on the outcome of an experiment that is ongoing. For those who are certain they know the future (He's DEAD, Jim), the simple thing to do is remove the article from the purview of WikiProject Medicine. If some of these preserved cells are later found viable, we can always just put it back. The same thing, after all, happens in resuscitation. If a person is declared medically and thus legally dead, and a few minutes later, somebody arrives with a different idea, and some technique succeeds in reviving him, everybody doesn’t stand around and say “No, you’ve been declared dead, and you must stay that way. No coming back.” Instead, common sense rules. SBHarris 02:12, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, per discussion above with BD2412, that's the view I'm coming to as well. Section header changed accordingly - David Gerard (talk) 09:30, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Some comments added by RMerkle (talk) 04:06, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
It is perhaps worth pointing out a few obvious facts. First, the scientific basis for cryonics goes well beyond cryobiology. Cryobiological expertise can illuminate what happens during cryopreservation, and offers the hope that we might cryopreserve patients in a manner that simplifies future revival. However, beyond cryobiology, cryonics most definitely includes the study of those future technologies that might be used to revive patients, particularly including molecular nanotechnology, nanomedicine, those specialized aspects of nanomedicine that deal with cryopreserved tissue, cryptanalysis of cryopreserved tissue to infer the healthy state, the design of improved cryogenic storage systems (including intermediate temperature storage systems), neuroscience (particularly as it relates to long-term human memory), and the philosophy of mind. Other relevant topics include organizational structures and the laws pertaining thereto (with particular emphasis on the design of stable institutional structures), long-term low-risk financial investment strategies (such as those used in Alcor's Patient Care Trust), and quite a few other things.

Second, cryonics proposes to use future technologies to revive patients cryopreserved today. Standard medical procedures use existing technologies. Standard methods of evaluating standard medical procedures use what are called "clinical trials". The idea behind clinical trials is remarkably simple. Try out the proposal, and see if it works. The correct clinical trials to evaluate cryonics are: select N patients, cryopreserve them, and see if medical technology 100 years from now can revive them.

If we use clinical trials with cryonics, we'll be waiting a long time for an answer. So, we do what any sensible person would do when facing a terminal illness and given only an experimental treatment as an option: we find out as much as we can about the experimental treatment. That is, actually, what science is all about: acting like a sensible person. At the heart of cryonics is the idea that future technology can revive you, as long as you're cryopreserved "well enough". Therefore, you'd expect the cryonics literature to focus on: (1) how good can we make future medical technology (2) the quality of existing cryopreservation technology and how to improve it and (3) whether or not the technology postulated in (1) can repair the injuries inflicted by (2). This is more or less what we see.

Unfortunately, "conventional" medical treatments do not reference articles that discuss fundamental limits of computation, or which engage in careful analysis of what technologies are likely to be developed within the next century. These are, however, fundamental to a proposal which plans on using technologies developed a century from now. There are, therefore, significant differences in the literature cited by standard medical articles and the literature cited by cryonics articles, and also in the reasoning used in the two cases when that literature is cited.
End of comments by RMerkle (talk) 04:06, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

"Some" versus "extant"

There have now been a few edits going back and forth about whether "Some scientific literature supports the feasibility of cryonics" or whether "The extant scientific literature supports the feasibility of cryonics."

If "some" scientific literature supports cryonics, then there must be "some" scientific literature the cryonics deniers can cite in opposition to cryonics. If this is the case, then it is only necessary to provide a single citation to a reference in the scientific literature that provides a scientifically credible reason in support of the claim that cryonics does not work, and the use of "extant" would be called into question.

The cryonics deniers have not provided a single citation to the scientific literature to support their position.

Now, looking at the top of this page, we find the following: "...there does not actually seem to be any serious, scientific attempts to formulate a skeptical and rational anti-cryonics position." It goes on to say "If there is such an argument out there, I have not seen it... and if you know of one, I'd be very happy to have the reference." These comments are signed by Allan Randall, and dated 14 May 2005. That's over 15 years ago. This is in addition to the already cited articles and references which say that "The extant literature supports" cryonics and "Though many experts in cryogenics and other relevant fields are quoted in the media as condemning cryonics practice, none have written at greater length to explain their reasons."

The cryonics deniers have not provided a single citation even though they have been asked to do so for at least 15 years. It appears to be absolutely true and correct that the extant scientific literature supports, but does not prove, the hypothesis that cryonics is feasible. That's a bit of a mouthful, so shortening it to "the extant scientific literature supports the feasibility of cryonics" seems reasonable.

OK, David Gerard. Your turn.

RMerkle (talk) 23:28, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

• IMO, the difference is that it's much easier to prove a positive than a negative. Because of WP:NOR, it's generally bad to use primary sources in a way that's non-obvious, or that requires original interpretation. Saying "some" literature supports cryonics is obvious from primary sources - just cite a few papers that support it. But saying "the extant" literature supports it requires showing that there are no papers against cryonics (or, at least, that it's a fringe position in the relevant literature). That's much less obvious, because it's hard to prove a negative. Therefore, even though the claim "the extant literature supports cryonics" might be true, I think it needs a secondary source to support it, to avoid violating WP:NOR. Saying there are no papers against cryonics, based on primary sources, is essentially doing the literature review ourselves, which isn't what Wikipedia was about. The right place to do a literature review is an academic journal, not here. See WP:VERIFY. Spectra239 (talk) 00:20, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

To clarify my understanding of policy, I assume Spectra239 means just the part about "The cryonics deniers have not provided a single citation even though they have been asked to do so for at least 15 years" is a WP:NOR issue. The direct issue at hand of quoting Merkle 1992 is a WP:WEIGHT issue, not a WP:NOR issue; if Merkle 1992 were in a high-quality journal, and if people on the page agreed to it, we could certainly say "As of 1992, according to Ralph Merkle, the extant literature supports but does not prove the hypothesis that cryonics is feasible." But Merkle 1992 was in Medical Hypotheses, which I believe wasn't peer-reviewed at the time and doesn't carry significant WP:WEIGHT, so it doesn't really belong on Wikipedia in the first place, especially when there are many quotes from other scientists that *have* appeared in the mainstream media and carry WP:WEIGHT. So a better source would have to be found, especially given that "feasible" is a subjectively stronger judgement than "not physically impossible". Rolf H Nelson (talk) 04:27, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

And particularly given Rejuvenation Research is an extremely dubious journal, and that's an extremely dubious paper. If one non-peer-reviewed paper from 1992 (which it's the author who keeps putting it forward as somehow of weight) and one paper from 2015 is the total support for the claim, then it's a bad claim. I suggest striking the sentence altogether. In fact, the whole paragraph should go, per discussions above on this page - the second sentence is cited to a blog post whose argument is literally "you can't prove it isn't true!" and the third to an Open Letter that is completely unknown outside cryonics circles and is of no note in the wider world (per above discussion) - David Gerard (talk) 10:00, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Rejuvenation Research appears to be a peer-reviewed journal from a respected academic publisher (cite), but AFAICT, the paper being referenced (I assume here) doesn't support a claim of "the extant scientific literature supports cryonics". It only describes a single experiment, not anything like a literature review. Arguably it doesn't even "support cryonics", just one particular cryonics claim about memory preservation; the word "cryonics" itself doesn't appear in the paper.

Using any kind of citation from 1992 to talk about the state of the scientific literature (as opposed to eg. the results of particular experiments) seems pretty silly. Cryonics, and biology in general, has changed vastly in the last 25 years. The state of the literature in 1992 (whatever it was) is irrelevant, except possibly for a "history" section. Spectra239 (talk) 11:55, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Per the above I've removed the paragraph, given the terrible sourcing it's completely unsuitable for an intro. I would suggest a paragraph making claims about scientific support for cryonics not be reintroduced with rather more substantive backing, and not blog posts - David Gerard (talk) 21:13, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Comments by RMerkle (talk)

There seems to be a claim that "the scientific literature" consists of a single article, "The Technical Feasibility of Cryonics". I'm flattered. There is, in fact, quite a large literature. The recent publication of "Persistence of Long-Term Memory in Vitrified and Revived Caenorhabditis elegans" is, of course, the most recent evidence of this fact. This publication is referenced in the article "The Science Surrounding Cryonics" published in MIT Technology Review, October 19, 2015, where it says "Direct evidence that memories can survive cryopreservation comes from the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans ...". It also says, in the same article, "Similarly, it has been shown that long-term potentiation of neurons, a mechanism of memory, remains intact in rabbit brain tissue following cryopreservation."

There is also the PBS special on the Brain. The November 18, 2015 episode, "The Brain with David Eagleman: Episode 6 | Cryonic Preservation of the Brain and Body". To quote from the PBS blurb: "David visits Alcor Life Extension Foundation where CEO Max More explains that the team’s aim is to give people a second chance at life." Really, not including this excellent video in the Wikipedia article on cryonics is criminal, but I wouldn't even try because I know the response of the cryonics deniers.

Then there is the remarkable change by one Michael Shermer, whose 2001 editorial in Scientific American was titled "Nano Nonsense and Cryonics." What does he say today? In the February 1, 2016 issue of Scientific American he has a piece titled "Can Our Minds Live Forever?" where he talks about cryopreservation. Interesting.

Even a brief perusal of PubMed reveals other articles, and CiteSeer has more.

This does not even mention the flood of articles that have been published in Cryonics magazine. Cryonics magazine, the standard place where everyone interested in cryonics has been publishing their results.

The old rhetorical trick of claiming the "burden of proof" falls on the other guy simply isn't going to cut it. When one side has evidence and citations in support of their case, and the other side has none, and the only counter they can muster is "Well, your references are inferior", and then they try to delete the argument so that no one can see it, then you know they've lost.

RMerkle (talk) 00:10, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Cryonics organizations

I think the Cryonics page should feature more content about cryonics organizations. I have very briefly mentioned the major cryonics service providers, but I think there should be more information about costs, number of cryopreserved individuals and logistics involved. ComicsAreJustAllRight previously removed information from cryonics organizations like Alcor claiming this was promotional material, but I think he went too far and some information should be reinstated. Although this could be perceived as promoting these organizations, I think this is relevant information about the topic of the page. For example, knowing how much cryonics costs is of general interest. Moreover, I think the recent UK Cryonics and Cryopreservation Research Network should be mentioned on the page. It's a research network, non-profit, composed of academics from Oxford, Cambridge, etc. It showcases that cryonics has some scientific acceptance, which is why it is relevant to the topic under discussion. ComicsAreJustAllRight and David Gerard removed this information, but I think it should be reinstated. Tiddlypeep (talk) 11:36, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

It's fine to have pricing information like "prices can range from $X to $Y" and to mention specific cryonics organizations, as long as it's well-sourced to a notable 3rd party per WP:RS and WP:WEIGHT. I haven't looked at all ComicsAreJustAllRight's reverts but the first couple I looked at seemed valid reverts, as he was reverting poorly-sourced material. One good way to help would be to track what the mainstream media or top-tier academic journals are saying about cryonics, and add that information in as time permits. For example, [10], which would be an extremely valid source, mentions an $80k neuropreservation fee. That said, this page can't be a detailed "comparison price guide", especially as there's no guarantee the information on this page will stay up-to-date; we will have to leave it to other pages outside of Wikipedia to track more detailed information. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 02:01, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the thoughts Rolf H Nelson. I think one issue is exactly the sources, and why ComicsAreJustAllRight claimed to have removed some of my edits. There are no publications on cryonics in top-tier academic journals. Mainstream media sometimes provides coverage, but quality is highly variable, even in top media outlets. So one of the issues I previously argued was that primary sources would be okay. I mean, if I am quoting the price of a company, is it wrong to quote directly from their website? Ref 6 on the open letter is a primary source, and I don't think that's incorrect. And I missing something here? Tiddlypeep (talk) 23:28, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

There's a Wikipedia policy called WP:NOTACATALOG that states: "An article should not include product pricing or availability information unless there is a source and a justified reason for the mention. Encyclopedic significance may be indicated if mainstream media sources (not just product reviews) provide commentary on these details instead of just passing mention. *Prices and product availability can vary widely from place to place and over time.* Wikipedia is not a price comparison service to compare the prices of competing products, or the prices and availability of a single product from different vendors or retailers." (Emphasis added) In general, people looking for specific prices should go to the up-to-date Web sites for service providers in their regions. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 02:20, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

As far as "sometimes we do use primary sources", if everyone on the page agrees it's common sense that a primary source belongs in, or if it otherwise meets WP:PRIMARY, we can definitely leave it in. The "Open Letter on Cryonics", surprisingly, appears to have gotten zero mainstream media coverage or high-quality journal coverage, so it could be removed, believe it or not. It's valid to list some scientists who are cryonics proponents, but surely there is a secondary source out there somewhere talking about them. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 02:20, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Secondary sources have reported on the Scientists Open Letter on Cryonics, such as News.com.au and Market Business News. Public mentions of individual support of cryonics by various signatories are scattered in news media stories, such as They've Seen the Future and Intend to Live It, This Day in Jewish History, and An interview with aging and longevity expert Aubrey de Grey. Cryobiologist (talk) 00:16, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

IMHO News.com.au classifies as tabloid rather than MSM, and the article itself looks like lazy repackaging of a press release. Market Business News just says "According to Wikipedia, Minsky signed an open letter on Cryonics", which doesn't help the case for inclusion. The other sources, if they don't specifically mention the Open Letter, don't help the case for inclusion of the Open Letter.Rolf H Nelson (talk) 06:08, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Terrible source for bizarre beliefs

After another editor deleted a description of cryonicists' beliefs because it was supported by a reference to writings of a prominent cryonics thought leader (the most direct reference possible to asserted cryonicist beliefs), Guy just deleted the text again even though now it was instead supported by references that included mainstream journals articles by an academic ethicist and an MD PhD professor of anesthesiology with no discernible personal interest in cryonics other than academic commentary. The full comment accompanying the text deletion was "Terrible source for bizarre beliefs - this needs to be drawn from a mainstream source with commentary on its validity." And yet the title of the paper by the anesthesiologist was "Cryonic Life Extension: Scientific Possibility or Stupid Pipe Dream?"

The summary of recent editing events seems to be that when any attempt is made to describe the beliefs of cryonicists, the writing of any known cryonicist in a non-journal source is disallowed (e.g. Thomas Donaldson), the writing of any known cryonicist in an unrefereed journal is disallowed (e.g. Ralph Merkle), the writing of any cryonicist in a refereed journal is disallowed (e.g. Ben Best), and then any writing in any journal by any author that articulates beliefs of cryonicists is disallowed because the beliefs of cryonicists are so self-evidently bonkers as to not merit mention in any reputable source so any source that does mention them is ipso facto a terrible source. If there is a mistaken perception here, please correct it.

Ethics in Biology, Engineering and Medicine: An International Journal is published by Begell house, which I'm not particularly familiar with one way or the other; I'd be happier with it if I could find something like an impact factor for it. Rejuvenation Research is definitely not mainstream though. Better sources exist. I see you recently made an edit sourcing The Journal of Medical Ethics, which looks legit to me. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 03:57, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

There are all kinds of bizarre beliefs in the world. The truth of most of the world's religions are mutually exclusive, necessitating by logic that some of them must be wrong. Yet the article on Catholicism contains extensive references to theological sources, including Canon Law and even the Apostles' Creed linked directly to a church web site (balant "commercial advertising" by the standards being enforced for the cryonics article). The article on Transcendental Meditation also allows direct links to the TM organization website to support part of that article. The article on homeopathy contains 303 references, the very first of which is to "The Homeopathic Medical Doctrine," by the founder of that nonsensical field. So why is that allowed on Wikipedia, but references to the "canonical" cryonics paper by Ralph Merkle in Med Hypotheses not allowed to be cited in the cryonics article?

If you have a complaint about other pages, address them in those pages. I haven't looked at the pages you describe, but in general nobody will disagree with you that there exist other pages on Wikipedia worse than this one; that doesn't really get you anywhere though. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 03:57, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Please do look at those pages because they reflect how Wikipedia handles the difference between accurately documenting beliefs as distinct from statements about truth of beliefs. They are not bad pages. Check out Catholic Church, which has Wikipedia Good Article status. Of its 376 references, almost all of them are Catholic sources. Jehovah's Witnesses is another Good Article. "Watchtower" occurs 100 times in the References. Of the hundreds of articles listed as Good Articles in the Philosophy and Religion category, I believe you'll find references to texts and writings of believers in practically all of them. Yet they are Good Articles by Wikipedia standards. Note also the comments by bd2412 T earlier on this Talk page, an admin who has edited 10% of all articles on Wikipedia according to his user page.

Since it's Good Article status, I took a look the Catholicism article, and I agree with you that the Catholicism article does indeed break WP:NPOV. There may be an implicit different standard applied to secular vs. religious beliefs that's unjustified by Wikipedia policy. If that bothers you, feel free to go over to that article's talk page and try to fix it. Best of luck! Rolf H Nelson (talk) 19:50, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

If there are reliably sourced discussions of the arguments people make, that is a different matter than the science of whether (or how) cryonics work. Compare the Acupuncture#Conceptual basis section, which details what people have believed about acupuncture, in contrast to the earlier sections of the article which detail the scientific investigation of acupuncture. bd2412 T 14:26, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I see that quote, but he doesn't dispute that the Merkle reference should stay out, though it may be the concern was with the "all the scientific literature supports cryonics" assertion. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 19:50, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

With this background, I hope we can agree that citations of cryonicist writings should be allowed in an article about cryonics as long it's clear that the verbiage they support are beliefs not facts. Unlike statements of belief, or statements of opinion presented as such, assertions or intimations of scientific fact should be supported by stronger sources. Does this make sense? Cryobiologist (talk) 10:04, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

When clearly stated as statements of belief, what applies is WP:WEIGHT, and not the stronger WP:RS. So if you should say "should be allowed as long as WP:WEIGHT and WP:NPOV are respected", then you're correct. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 19:50, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

I put the question: In Wikipedia articles about odd beliefs like cryonics, exactly how does one provide references establishing that the odd beliefs stated in the article are the actual beliefs of the adherents, irrespective of the correctness of the beliefs?

Mainstream media sources have a wealth of information about what cryonicists believe. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 03:57, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to respectfully restore the deleted text and references in question for the purpose of drawing attention to this issue. Cryobiologist (talk) 00:11, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Annotated bibliography for Project

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0011224004000264

This article is important because it discusses vitrification, which is regarded as the basis for cryonics. Vitrification allows you to preserve a specimen without causing any injury or destruction to the tissue. This article also fulfills Wikipedia’s requirements.

Looks good to me, but keep in mind we can link to other articles to provide in-depth detail of current vitrification if we don't want to duplicate it. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 06:15, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/44585142_Extreme_Life_Extension_Investing_in_Cryonics_for_the_Long_Long_Term

The author of this research article makes significant points about the potential changes that would occur if cryonics becomes a success. She talks about how it could possibly affect society, the economy, and how it can change the concepts of ‘life’ and ‘death.’

Looks good to me. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 06:15, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3516123/

This research article is relevant to my Wiki article because it talks about cryonics from an ethical standpoint and the costs (financial and societal) associated with it.

I'm inclined to oppose inclusion, b/c cryonics was only discussed during a q-and-a session. I'm not sure what you mean by "my Wiki article", is this for a class project? Rolf H Nelson (talk) 06:15, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18321197

This source backs up the practice of cryonics from a scientific standpoint. The author suggests that future developments in nanotechnology and cryonics can possibly ‘reverse’ the health effects associated with aging.

I'm inclined to oppose inclusion of technical analysis per WP:WEIGHT. If someone wants Ben Best's current thoughts on technical best-practices, they should just look at Ben Best's Web page, where they'll get up-to-date information rather than the stale and badly paraphrased information we would provide here. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 06:15, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10183890

Although future revival is not guaranteed, some people still choose to become cryogenically preserved for various reasons. This article looks at cryonics from a legal view and talks about what life experiences may motivate people to choose cryonics over cremation, for example.

Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy, multiple cites, looks legit to me. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 06:15, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Mlgeorge925 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:01, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Removed section on Ethics

Cryonics views legal death as a perhaps sometimes pragmatically useful but fundamentally flawed and usually incorrect diagnosis which has no theoretical or philosophical justification. "Legal death" is usually just another name for a set of symptoms that have proven resistant to treatment by contemporary medicine. If death is not an event that happens suddenly when the heart stops (and "legal death" is often pronounced) this raises philosophical questions about what exactly death is. In 2005 an ethics debate in the medical journal, Critical Care, noted “…few if any patients pronounced dead by today’s physicians are in fact truly dead by any scientifically rigorous criteria.”

This is WP:SYN: the source is not talking about cryonics, the in-universe description of how "cryonics views" death is unsourced and tendentious.

The use of cryonics to potentially save lives must also be considered from a public health standpoint. The question of how cryonics can benefit society and the financial costs associated with it need to be pondered.

The only mention of cryonics is in a response to a question from the audience which is off the cuff and not peer-reviewed at all.

Ethical and theological opinions of cryonics tend to pivot on the issue of whether cryonics is regarded as interment or medicine.

Unsourced personal opinion.

In 1969, a Roman Catholic priest consecrated the cryonics capsule of Ann DeBlasio, one of the first cryonics patients.

Of questionable relevance to ethics, at least as stated, and in any case sourced to a journal which has a definite POV.

At the request of the American Cryonics Society, in 1995, philosopher Charles authored a paper entitled “Cryonic-Hibernation in Light of the Bioethical Principles of Beauchamp and Childress.” Tandy considered the four bioethical factors or principles articulated by philosophers Beauchamp and Childress as they apply to cryonics. These four principles are 1) respect for autonomy; 2) nonmaleficence; 3) beneficence; and 4) justice. Tandy concluded that in respect to all four principles “biomedical professionals have a strong (not weak) and actual (not prima facie, but binding) obligation to help insure cryonic-hibernation of the cryonics patient.”

The first source is not a source, it's his personal homepage, the second source is WP:PRIMARY - and since it was requested by a bunch of believers to write it, this seems unlikely to be a genuinely independent view.

There are ethical issues (first and foremost, the fact that a successful cryonic preservation more or less requires that the patient is not brain dead when frozen, which, given the near zero chance of revival, raises some pretty important questions), but this section was naked advocacy and not in any way a neutral treatment of those issues. Guy (Help!) 18:17, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

References

• While I agree with all of the above, it wouldn't have hurt to mention it briefly in the talk instead of just reverting my first attempted fix. It's not obvious that you're an admin, and you ought to slow down a little bit sometimes instead of just carving out large sections without any explanation.--JordanSparks (talk) 19:00, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
• No, actually the first reference was very good and was indeed specifically addressing cryonics. Ethics is a hugely important topic, and should have been discussed before removing.--JordanSparks (talk) 19:11, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
  • The first reference was indeed, in the paragraph that the sentence was quoted from, talking about cryonics; JzG might have missed it because it didn't actually use the word "cryonics". The journal itself seems legit as far as I can tell, but the article overall only discusses cryonics tangentially. IMHO time spent arguing for inclusion of tangential sources, would be better spent on finding and including on-topic sources. For example, the article "Cryoethics: seeking life after death" in the journal Bioethics would be an on-topic reference to use for ethics IMHO. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 04:37, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

That is a major part of the problem, yes: sources that only reference cryonics in passing. This is an area that has been subject to some pretty abysmal editing over the years, a lot of content in the walled garden of cryonics articles reads as if it was written by True Believers. We must never lose sight of the fact that (a) there is no technology currently known which even has the potential to develop into something that would reverse cryonic freezing, let alone the original cause of death and (b) in the unlikely event of this ever happening, there is no guarantee that the corpsicles in storage will be amenable to such processes, or that the people of the hypothetical future would have the remotest interest in thawing them anyway. Guy (Help!) 00:22, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "even has the potential to develop", but yes, this is one of the many parts of Wikipedia where peoples' enthusiasm for a topic has resulted in a page that doesn't follow WP:NPOV. Let me see if I can fix it over the next week to avoid anyone having to escalate. Can you give me a list of which other cryonics pages you have concern about? Rolf H Nelson (talk) 19:14, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Transhumanism articles in general suffer terrible enthusiast sourcing, and bitter resistance to basic WP:RS ... I expect the struggle to continue for a while - David Gerard (talk) 20:25, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Update: I've pretty much finished making the fixes I planned to make. As always, feel free to make or propose changes, or to discuss here on Talk, if there are still NPOV concerns.Rolf H Nelson (talk) 06:30, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Appropriate sources and the meaning of NPOV WEIGHT

I ask that people who haven’t read it, please read just above at “All citations don’t have to be WP:MEDRS” [11], so I don’t have to write it again here. Since cryonics is a self-funded medical experiment, it has not generated medical knowledge, and doesn’t claim to have done so. Thus, WP:MEDRS doesn’t apply. There exist papers in referred mainstream journals which are already cited, such as NY Acad Sci (Lemmler, 2004), and J. Medical Ethics (Moen, 2015) which make both the scientific and ethical case for the cryonics experiment. Other views in opposition are also presented in this article.

However, please note that science experiments while in progress are in a vulnerable state to science-based criticism from WP:RS science. If you’ve spent billions of dollars trying to find the Higgs Boson or gravitational waves, and have come up with nothing, so long as you are empty-handed, your critics will always claim you’ve wasted the public’s money (or the victim’s money) on moonshine, while pursuing what is essentially an unfalsifiable belief, since failure to find the object only results in the objection that perhaps it still exists, but just outside the limits of present technology (therefore, more money is needed and you have to wait for the Future to arrive). However, none of this really should effect whether or not Wikipedia (meanwhile) has an article on Higgs bosons or gravitational waves before they are found. Clearly, it should. And an article on human cloning before humans are cloned. And one on colonizing Mars before it happens, and so forth. So long as there is interest (coverage) from published sources.

As for WP:RS issues, the controlling source for what cryonicists believe is obviously primary sources written by cryonicists, or even WP:SELFSOURCE which exists primarily for the purpose of finding out what adherents to an “odd belief” actually think. One does not ask “mainstream media sources” what atheists believe (for example), when it’s simple enough to ask prominent atheists themselves. Mainstream media has limited time, and they almost always get something wrong when used as an unnecessary filter on beliefs (rather than events). It’s especially necessary to go to multiple primary sources in the case of non-dogmatic beliefs, where a central church doesn’t control what is “heresy” and what is not, so there is no available master set of “atheist dogma” doctrine to look up, and reference as being canonical. An example of how to do it on WP is the article on atheism. Another is Moon landing conspiracy theories, which is three times the size of the cryonics article, and which essentially presents its material as a series of cites of primary sources (as do most conspiracy theory articles).

As for NPOV and WEIGHT issues, they don’t exist here in dedicated articles on fringe ideas. WP:NPOV policy is

“Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all, except perhaps in a "see also" to an article about those specific views.”

Cryonics is that latter article. WEIGHT does not suggest the “specific view” article should be cut. WP is WP:NOTPAPER so there is no need to edit for size. WEIGHT issues come into play when a mainstream belief article like Apollo Program has material from Moon landing conspiracy theories inserted so that it makes this fringe belief seem to carry more weight than it “should” among RS sources. However, cryonics has no problems messing up mainstream science articles, except to get a mention that it’s not mainstream science. Hence, no problem to begin with.

Again, WP:WEIGHT does not prevent creation of lengthy articles on fringe topics, if there is much media interest in them, and there are sources for the material. But media should be used to demonstrate interest (as with any religion or nonscientific belief), not as a source of facts about the belief, if better sources are available. Of course, in the case of cryonics belief and practice, better sources are available, and should be used. For example, you don’t go to the New York Times to find out (say) what happens inside LDS temples. Even if the New York Times mentions Mormons enough that the topic begs coverage from other sources, those other sources should know what they are talking about.

I am concerned with the belief expressed above by Rolf Nelson’s “Since it's Good Article status, I took a look the Catholicism article, and I agree with you that the Catholicism article does indeed break WP:NPOV. There may be an implicit different standard applied to secular vs. religious beliefs that's unjustified by Wikipedia policy. If that bothers you, feel free to go over to that article's talk page and try to fix it. Best of luck.”

That’s not really an argument. I don’t accept that it breaks WP:NPOV, only that Mr. Nelson has not understood NPOV. I could as well suggest he go over there and try to fix it, since he’s the one pushing that idea that it’s not policy (the OP merely brings up these policies as a counterexample to Mr.Nelson’s views, not as a counterexample of WP policy being avoided in actuality).

An attack on the Catholicism article on its TALK page, accusing it of being NPOV will result in exactly what’s happening here. It is actually consistent with WP policy, as stated. It doesn’t break NPOV merely because it’s not 50% Catholic criticism, or whatever is the English speaking world “media attention fraction” coverage opinion of Catholicism. That’s not the way WP is constructed. WP:VALID (the policy) specifically mentions the article on Moon landing conspiracy theories, just as WP:WEIGHT mentions the Flat Earth article (and see Modern flat Earth societies). WP:NPOV does not argue that these articles should be reduced in size because they are fringe, only that the material be reduced in size (or entirely omitted) in the parent article, and not be mentioned side-by-side with the conventional wisdom, in the main article on the topic. And that is done.

Completely separately, the article on Roman Catholicism also has plenty of precedent on Wikipedia (see heliocentrism for an amusing ironic example). The separate arguments for presedent are essentially laid out in WP:OSE at WP:Some stuff exists for a reason. This isn’t policy (nor is it, its converse) but precedent does represent a first step toward consensus. Historically many things have been decided on WP by precedent that should have been decided no other way (for example the intrinsic notability of high schools vs. grade schools, and so on). The article on Roman Catholicism is hardly some walled garden that exists in present form because nobody noticed it. A lot of people worked on it, and came up with a solution that would have crashed a long time ago, if it were really against NPOV WEIGHT policy. Hence, anybody thinking otherwise should consider looking carefully at NPOV policy again.SBHarris 01:57, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

I differ on your interpretation of policy, especially WP:SELFSOURCE, but I feel we're drifting off-topic. Let's look at a specific example. We've seen edit-warring on the page trying to make it say "The extant scientific literature supports the feasibility of cryonics" stated as fact and sourced to an old article in the non-peer-reviewed Medical Hypotheses; it sounds like you and I are in agreement that can't be put in like that. But, I'm sure at least one editor on the page would be extremely happy if we could at least say "In the year xxxx, cryonics researcher Ralph Merkle stated that the extant scientific literature supports the feasibility of cryonics" in this article. Unfortunately I can't see a way to justify its inclusion by Wikipedia policy, because the WP:WEIGHT is so low that AFAIK nobody has ever bothered to assess that claim or put it in context. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 05:50, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

We agree on that one. It's surely far too extravagant a statement to be supported by the source, all things considered. Extraordinary statements require extraordinary sources. Could we go on to something less egregious? Certainly it's not the ethics stuff, where one can find both views in equal quality journals. And there are lots and lots of sources for what cryonicists believe and not much reason to doubt that they believe what they say they do, just like we have for various types of Muslims (no, the shi'ia article doesn't have to be 85% about sunnis, just for proper balance). What if Merkle's statement were qualified entirely as an example of what some cryonicists believe? Rather like the article on the simulation hypothesis has a statement that Nick Bostrom thinks that the empirical evidences suggests we are almost certainly living in a simulation. Most scientists don't agree with him. It's a great hypothesis, but they don't agree that empirical evidence generally supports him. But in the article on the simulation hypothesis, Bostrom's statement stands as an example of what one True Believer thinks. And we have stuff like that on all philosophical views, religions, and so on. Are we to leave Bostrom out of that article? For example? Or is he used correctly? SBHarris 03:25, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I would oppose "Cryonics researcher Ralph Merkle believes that the extant scientific literature supports the feasibility of cryonics" as well. The argument, as phrased like that, is so obscure that it fails WP:UNDUE to try to mention it. To compare with the Bostrom example, Bostrom guessed there's a 20% chance we live in a simulation; I'd have no WP:UNDUE problem to mention that based on a primary source because IMHO it's not "pushing a point of view" to state to what the inventor of an argument thinks about its consequences. (Of course, another editor might validly argue it fails WP:WEIGHT if there is no good secondary source and they don't think the point is interesting enough to merit inclusion. Wikipedia isn't paper, but we don't have to include Bostrom's favorite breed of dog either.) My objection is that if Z implies Y, saying "Person X believes Y, because he believes Z," triggers extra scrutiny per WP:UNDUE because it introduces an unchallenged argument for Y, even if it was meant to be just being an innocuous documentation of someone's beliefs. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 05:06, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

How to handle the inaccuracy in the Michael Hendricks quote? (in the Reception section)

I think it is notable and valuable to report that some scientists are actively hostile to the cryonics concept, because that is an accurate statement. However, the previously chosen Hendricks quote contains a serious factual inaccuracy, and I do object to the unqualified inclusion of inaccurate information into the article. The phrase "Those who profit from this hope" includes the implicit statement that organizations or individuals are profiting from cryonics. However the two largest cryonics organizations in the world (The organizations who account for the vast majority of existing cryonics patients and members), are both nonprofit corporations. This makes the specified implication verifiably inaccurate by the standards of the United States legal system, and more specifically according to the 501(c)(3) nonprofit (Organizational Exemption) qualifications and requirements and Internal Revenue Service. Therefore, I believe that this quote should either be removed from the article, or at minimum, the quote should followed with a statement which indicates the factual inaccuracy contained in the quote. I would be open to either kind of resolution to this concern, and I wanted to seek the opinion of others.

Until a consensus is reached in the talk page on how to handle the factual inaccuracy, I have edited the article to remove the quote. However, I have left a (true) statement that "some people are openly hostile to the concept", with a reference on the sentence to the Hendricks paper. I changed the word "scientists" to "people", because the example given was of only one scientist (Hendricks, not the plural "scientists"). I thought that using the word people created a more inclusive and conservatively accurate reflection of the more strident critics of cryonics. -- Nome77 (talk) 21:36, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

A list of original books, pages, and other sources which reference the "Scientists Open Letter on Cryonics"

Forgive the length of this list. The "Scientists Open Letter on Cryonics" has had wide circulation, therefore this list is large (and still incomplete). These references are written here because the editors of the cryonics article have requested additional secondary sources which reference the open letter.

List of references:

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
"The Prospect of Immortality - Fifty Years Later" (book, paperback): The open letter is on page 519. Amazon link for the book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Prospect-Immortality-Fifty-Years/dp/1934297224 "The Vorkosigan Companion" review of fictional works, (book, paperback): https://books.google.com/books?id=Lr50CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT98&dq=The%20Vorkosigan%20Companion%20%22open%20letter%22%20cryonics&pg=PT98#v=onepage&q=The%20Vorkosigan%20Companion%20%22open%20letter%22%20cryonics&f=false "Lost in Wonder: Imagining Science and Other Mysteries" (book, paperback) https://books.google.com/books?id=Zm15sJ_viBYC&pg=PT110&dq=Lost+in+Wonder:+Imagining+Science+and+Other+Mysteries+%22open+letter%22+cryonics&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiix87m8tPLAhUIxmMKHTj4AxsQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=Lost%20in%20Wonder%3A%20Imagining%20Science%20and%20Other%20Mysteries%20%22open%20letter%22%20cryonics&f=false "St. John's Law Review" (Printed legal review publication), Issue 4 Volume 83, Fall 2009, Number 4: "Personal Revival Trusts: If You Can't Take It with You, Can You Come Back To Get It?" http://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1051&context=lawreview Lutheran Hour Ministries: Bible studies, "Session 1: Digging deeper: Death, then what?" (PDF ebook and bible study guide): (Direct ebook link: http://www.lhm.org/studies/downloadfilemnw.asp?ID=2515 ) (or starting link: http://www.lhm.org/studies/studydetail.asp?id=19975 Click download, and then click "download file" under Digging Deeper PDF) National Institute of Health (NIH), News Briefs, "Deep freeze Down Under": http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3414624/ News.com.au "Brain freeze: The people putting themselves in frozen storage": http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/brain-freeze-the-people-putting-themselves-in-frozen-storage/news-story/3e1f493fc6370190760bb45542c3bdc6 ChinaDaily Asia (News publication), Article, "Frozen Chinese body prompts hot debate" http://www.chinadailyasia.com/chinafocus/2015-09/22/content_15320286.html The Verge ("Reporting on the intersection of technology, science, art, and culture.") Article, "The Eternal Promise". http://www.theverge.com/a/transhumanism-2015/cryogenics-human-research Beforeitsnews.com, Article, "Want a second chance at Life? Save up for a Cryonics procedure!" http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-liberal/2014/08/want-a-second-chance-at-life-save-up-for-a-cryonics-procedure-2487948.html Motherboard, Article, "The Girl Who Would Live Forever" http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-girl-who-would-live-forever Hplus Magazine (Transhumanist Publication), Article: The Repairable Human - Cryonics and Beyond: http://hplusmagazine.com/2015/01/08/repairable-human-cryonics-beyond/ Think Beyond (Transhumanist publication), Essay, "Transhumanism: Why Cryonics?": http://www.thinkbeyond.us/cryonics.html Market Business News, "Father of artificial intelligence, Marvin Minsky died on Sunday aged 88". http://marketbusinessnews.com/father-of-artificial-intelligence-marvin-minsky-died-on-sunday-aged-88/122324 Alcor (cryonics provider), Science FAQ: http://www.alcor.org/sciencefaq.htm Cryonics Institute (cryonics provider), Scientists Open Letter: http://www.cryonics.org/resources/scientists-open-letter-on-cryonics Wikipedia page - Life Extension: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_extension Wikipedia page - Aubrey de Grey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_de_Grey Wikipedia page- Marvin Minsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Minsky HplusPedia.org - Cryonics Page - Evidence - Scientists Open Letter: http://hpluspedia.org/wiki/Cryonics#Scientists.27_Open_Letter_on_Cryonics The Brain Preservation Foundation, "Featured Links": http://www.brainpreservation.org/links/ Home Page of Ben Best, Cryonics FAQ (A notable person in cryonics and life extension): "Have any scientists publicly expressed belief-in or support-for cryonics?" http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/CryoFAQ.html KrioRus (Russian cryonics provider, Page is in Russian language.): http://kriorus.com/news/pismo-v-zashchitu-krioniki UK Cryonics and Cryopreservation Research Network, Press release for Aldehyde Stabilized Cryopreservation: http://www.cryonics-research.org.uk/Medical%20Biostasis%20Press%20Package2016.pdf Review The Future: (Futurist podcast in Los Angeles, California), "Should you sign up for cryonics?": http://reviewthefuture.com/?p=602 The Daily Maverick, (South African News Publication), "Cryonics guru Robert Ettinger dies, his life put on ice. 27 Jul 2011": http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2011-07-27-cryonics-guru-robert-ettinger-dies-his-life-put-on-ice#.VvD8YOIrKrA FutureTimeline.net "An interview with aging and longevity expert Aubrey de Grey": http://www.futuretimeline.net/blog/2015/08/5.htm#.VvECp-IrKrB

-- Nome77 (talk) 09:14, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Are you seriously putting Before It's News forward as a WP:RS? And that cryonics advocates have put it into other Wikipedia pages? And a cryonics wiki? Please, please closely reread WP:RS and linked pages - David Gerard (talk) 16:36, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Cryonics membership statistics

Editor "Cryobiologist" commented in the edit history, "Converting to numbers supported by the Moen reference, and 2014 source access date in the paper. Cryonics organizations are no longer usable sources for this number because one of them no longer publishes the number of people with actual arrangements." and also commented "800 more people didn't signup for cryonics in one year."

To clarify: Which organization no longer publishes the number of people with actual arrangements?

I can't find disclosure of the number people of with legal and financial arrangements for cryopreservation at the Cryonics Institute any later than March 2015, when the number stood at 575. Cryobiologist (talk) 07:58, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

It could become problematic to continue to use the Moen reference indefinitely, because those numbers would become more and more out of date as time goes on. I would suggest that a solution needs to be found rather than continuing to use fixed numbers that will gain greater inaccuracy over time.

Proposed solution: We could change the wording to allow the use of the primary sources for these numbers, to specify how many "Members" each organization reports, rather than the more detailed "how many people have arrangements to be cryopreserved". While the number of people with actual arrangements does have some interest value, that statistic is no longer maintained. The more general number of "Members" of each organization also conveys a general informational value, and has the advantage that this statistic is less likely to become unavailable over time.

The statistic is arguably dis-informational if the meaning of "member" is so different between organizations as to render the word meaningless. There's a big difference between getting a magazine and being queued up for cryopreservation. The Moen reference also has the virtue of being a journal article. There are some strict editors who periodically visit the cryonics article page who don't like links to cryonics organization websites. Numbers supported by direct links to cryonics websites run a high risk of reversion. Numbers of members listed in the lede have previously been reverted. I think you should quit while you're ahead in adding numbers of people involved to the lede, and see if the journal-supported numbers can stand for awhile without being reverted. Given the slow growth of cryonics, two years out of date isn't that bad. Cryobiologist (talk) 08:18, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Regarding the comment of "800 more people didn't signup for cryonics in one year.", at the moment I see no particular reason why this would not be possible. My understanding (as heard from individuals associated with one of the cryonics organizations) is that the publicity generated by the New York Times article on Kim Suozzi, (published Sep 12, 2015,) instigated a large boost in new member sign-ups.

-- Nome77 (talk) 23:45, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

The websites of both main organizations only show gains of a few dozen people they call "members" in 2015. Unless the Cryonics Institute converted more magazine subscribers to people with cryonics arrangements last year than in their entire 40 year history, and for some reason kept this a secret, there aren't 800 new people with cryonics arrangements. Cryobiologist (talk) 08:32, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Cryobiologist, Thanks your your research on this. I have not looked into these numbers as closely as you. I agree with your assessment and edit choices on all counts. -- Nome77 (talk) 20:22, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Analysis of Wikipedia policy in context of the "Scientists Open Letter on Cryonics"

Hello all, What follows is an analysis of applicable Wikipedia policy, related to the issue of including the "Scientists Open Letter on Cryonics".

@David Gerard, I've received the impression that you'd like to block this viewpoint regardless of the desires of other editors. Therefore, the remainder of this conversation is for the benefit of other editors and viewers.

To provide a common framework for discussion, here are the bits from Wikipedia policy which most directly apply to the question at hand:

• Notability: "The notability guidelines do not apply to article or list content (with the exception that some lists restrict inclusion to notable items or people). Content coverage within a given article or list (i.e. whether something is noteworthy enough to be mentioned in the article or list) is governed by the principle of due weight and other content policies."
• NPOV, Inclusion of all significant views: "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."
• Verifiability, The appropriateness of a particular source: "Base articles on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Source material must have been published, the definition of which for our purposes is "made available to the public in some form". This includes material such as documents in publicly accessible archives, inscriptions on monuments, gravestones, etc., that are available for anyone to see. Unpublished materials are not considered reliable. Use sources that directly support the material presented in an article and are appropriate to the claims made. The appropriateness of any source depends on the context."

Here is my interpretation of the above policies, please correct me if I'm wrong on any particular point.

Notability:
Notability guidelines do not apply for content within an article. In other words, there is no need to prove that the Scientists' Open Letter is notable.

Inclusion of all significant views:
All significant points of view which have been published by published by reliable sources must be included in an article. The word significant in this context is not a synonym for notability. It means, "is this a point of view which is held by a portion of the people who are interested in the topic?" (This does not mean a "portion of the mainstream population", since most of the mainstream are not interested in this topic.) The content of the Scientists' Open Letter defines a particular point of view. The described point of view is agreed to and held by the majority of cryonicists. Therefore, the point of view being described is certainly significant to the topic of this cryonics article.

Verifiability and third-party sources:
The policy on verifiability specifies that "The appropriateness of any source depends on the context". One Wikipedia policy speaks about sources, they talk about "fact-checking" and "accuracy". In other words, the primary purpose of a source is to increase the likelihood that the information that is presented in a Wikipedia article is likely to be factually correct and accurate. This begs the question, which facts need to be verified in the case of the "Scientists Open Letter on Cryonics"? The facts that are being presented here are simple. 1) The open letter exists. This fact is self-evident, anyone can look at the open letter as a primary source to prove its own existence. 2) Any quotes taken from the open letter contain accurate text. Once again, the open letter can serve as a primary source for the accuracy of quoted text. 3) Did the signatories listed in the letter actually sign the letter? This appears likely to be true. If those names were made up, or if somebody's name was included against their will, it is likely that someone would have noticed by now, given the age of this letter and the number of people who referenced it. 4) Has anyone who is interested in the topic of cryonics noticed this letter, and considered it significant enough to mention in a third-party text? Yes, this letter has been referenced in numerous texts.

Do the third party sources need to extensively discuss this letter?:
No, not to verify the facts that we are including. If we were including opinions about the Scientists' Open Letter in the cryonics article, then we would need for the letter to be discussed at length in third-party sources to generate such opinions. However, we are not including any third-party opinions about the letter. Our article is simply including the fact that the letter exists, that it has been signed by the listed signatories, and that the text of the letter -describes its own opinion-. Since these are the only facts we are presenting, those are the only facts that need to be supported by third-party sources. In effect, any reference to the letter by a reliable third-party provides support for these basic facts, regardless of any extra discussion of the letter that the third party may have included.

Which reliable sources exist which have referenced the open letter?: In my opinion, the (context-sensitive) reliable sources from the reference list are:

• The National Institute of Health (NIH) (A federal governmental health organization).
• The Prospect of Immortality - Fifty Years Later (A published book written on the topic of cryonics).
• St. John's Law Review (A large periodical legal review publication).
• News.com.au (A large Australian news provider).
• The Cryonics Institute, Alcor, and KrioRus (All three of the largest independently operating cryonics organizations).
• UK Cryonics and Cryopreservation Research Network (A group of UK researchers focused on cryonics and cryopreservation).

Given that the Scientists' Open Letter meets the requirements of Wikipedia policy on a point by point basis, I propose that we include a section about the letter in the cryonics article. The proposed content already exists in the edit history for the cryonics page.

-- Nome77 (talk) 22:15, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

I have created and added a new version of the Scientists' Open Letter section to the cryonics page, with the new references that are mentioned above. If anyone disagrees with the inclusion of this content, please discuss and attempt consensus on the Talk page, or pursue Dispute Resolution options, rather than Edit Warring. -- Nome77 (talk) 01:04, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your yeoman's effort in finding all those references and defending mention of the Scientists' Open Letter on Cryonics. You are certainly right that if the article includes single newspaper quotes of single scientists, it can also include mention of an open letter endorsed by dozens of scientists mentioned in multiple newspaper articles, journal articles, and books that establish its noteworthiness. However I don't think a whole encyclopedia article section is appropriate. Sections are appropriate for broad categories. The open letter in question is clearly part of the Reception section. There's another issue that requires care. If the discussion of the open letter is so voluminous that it dominates the section, then the reader is liable to be left with a misleading impression of the standing of cryonics among scientists. Without a counterbalancing volume of critiques of cryonics, there is a high likelihood of future editors outright deleting a large exposition of the open letter for neutrality reasons. I think reproducing the entire text of the letter, for example, is too much. Cryobiologist (talk) 01:58, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

It has been suggested that the open letter belongs in the reception section (instead of its own section). I disagree with this. The word "Reception" implies "reception by the general public". It does not mean the opinion of scientists who support cryonics or in effect, those who help to -provide- cryonics, (these two opinions are quite different from each other). These should not be mixed into a single section or a subsection. Also, the open letter has a unique point of view that is being communicated from a highly educated, scientific perspective. This viewpoint should not be minimized in a way that is designed to reduce the amount of text dedicated to the topic on the screen, or in a way that is designed to reduce the verbal impact of the original open letter. I may be open to condensing the open letter text slightly (but not the explanations of it). However, it is my opinion that it's not very big to begin with (and WP:NotPaper). I would be unlikely to give my individual support to gutting the section and minimizing its significance. Once again, please use the talk page for dispute resolution to handle this topic, rather than editing or reducing the current text of the section. -- Nome77 (talk) 02:15, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I compressed the open letter section slightly, reducing it's vertical size by two lines and improving the style without significantly impacting the informational content. PS, Thank you Cryobiologist, for your thanks regarding the efforts. And thanks for agreeing that the open letter should be mentioned in the page. -- Nome77 (talk) 08:02, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

WP:BRD says "bold, revert, discuss", not "revert-war your spammy promotional piece back in" - David Gerard (talk) 10:31, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I have started the formal dispute resolution process on this topic. The dispute summary can be accessed at this link: Scientists Open Letter Dispute Link -- Nome77 (talk) 13:48, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Scientists open letter on cryonics

I added the "scientists open letter on cryonics" to this article, but it has currently been reverted. The editor Cryobiologist included this comment: "Reverting creation of whole section for Open Letter. Search for "Open Letter" on Talk page for discussion. Can you find more secondary sources talking about the Open Letter?"

It appears that Cryobiologist has already compiled and mentioned multiple secondary sources talking about the open letter, elsewhere in the talk page, but those sources have been discounted by at least one previous editor. I think the interview with Aubrey de Grey which mentions the letter is especially relevant, considering that he is a prominent figure in cryonics and life extension circles. See (An interview with aging and longevity expert Aubrey de Grey).

The few reasons for denying the inclusion of this letter seem flimsy at best. At worst, I believe that denying the inclusion of this open letter represents the suppression of information that is very relevant to the topic of cryonics and cryonicists. I will elaborate my thinking below.

Notability, and representation of the point of view of cryonicists:
As far as I can tell, the open letter is already quite notable, regardless of the number or popularity of the secondary sources that mention it. In other words, I do find it to be a worthy primary source, considering how well-known this letter is in the cryonics community. Until recently, cryonics itself was only rarely mentioned in popular media, so I see no reason that this letter would need to be exceptionally "famous" in print media before it could be considered worthy of mention. I find notability in this letter due to the academic standing of the signatories, and due to the number of people whose opinion the letter represents, and due to the careful scientific reasoning that is embodied in the text of the letter itself.

Most importantly, one does not have to agree with the contents of the letter in order to plainly see this letter represents a valid point of view that is held by -the majority- of cryonicists.

Comparison with existing article quotes:
There are various quotes in the article (from individuals) who are critics of cryonics. This letter is effectively a reasoned quote from 69 professional individuals who support cryonics. What makes any 1 individual opinion "significant" while 69 individual opinions are considered "not worthy of mention"?

Wikipedia policy:
Wikipedia states that we should describe debates rather than participate in them, and that all points of view should be included. If the other editors felt the necessity, it would be possible to qualify the impact of the open letter by stating that it is a minority point of view, as long as suitable references can be found to support its "minority" status. However, the personal opinion of any individual editor is not justifiable reason for excluding this letter.

Dismissal based on editor motivations:
I have my own opinion on topics related to cryonics, as does everyone else here. It is possible that my edits and motivations could get me labeled as a POV warrior. However, before I made these edits, I carefully read the Wikipedia's guidelines on NPOV so that I could follow their spirit as closely as possible. The stated policy is that we as editors should attempt to describe all points of view on a particular topic. This does not mean that we have to give each point of view equal weight.

warm regards,

-- Nome77 (talk) 22:46, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

The discussion is literally above on this very talk page, under #Cryonics_organizations and #.22Some.22_versus_.22extant.22. The reason is that it has had zero coverage in RSes that anyone can find. It is, simply, not in any way noteworthy or of mainstream impact. It is only publicity material for cryonics advocates.

You've just written three extensive talk-page comments, presumably desirous of serious consideration by other editors. However, it seems you've literally not bothered offering the same consideration yourself by reading existing discussion on the topics first - David Gerard (talk) 01:20, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Hello Mr Gerard, Yes, of course I read that section. How else could I have referenced the flow of the conversation. or the (same) Aubrey de Grey link? And yes, I brought up topics for discussion. That's the norm to attempt to reach working agreement on any reverted content.

I've noticed that your response does not address the talking points I listed for this issue. Perhaps it is better to focus on the issue than focus on each other? Do you have any cogent responses to offer?

Nome77 (talk) 05:21, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

From David Gerard: "it has had zero coverage in RSes that anyone can find." and "it has [no] mainstream impact".

A Google search for "Scientists Open Letter on Cryonics" (in quotes) returns 863 results. Those are the pages that include the full, exact title of the letter. Upon reviewing those results, I find that most of them are on pages that are related to cryonics, trans-humanism, or life extension. As expected, the letter is generally being used for its primary purpose, to display the fact that the signatories of the letter support the idea of cryonics. The open letter is referenced in numerous articles and interviews, as well as at least one printed book. The book reference is: "The Prospect of Immortality - Fifty Years Later", Page 519.

Most of these sources cannot be considered "mainstream" media, but I believe that this requirement is a strawman argument. Cryonics itself cannot be considered "mainstream", so why should any subject which is only of interest to cryonicists, been mentioned often in papers and articles that are outside of cryonics and life extension circles? Expecting the open letter to have a large amount of "mainstream impact" is a hurdle that cannot be surmounted by the topic of cryonics itself. It is, simply put, a bar too high. As far as I can tell, failing to mention this letter is simply an attempt to bias the article in favor of the critics of cryonics, by implying that it has zero scientific support. This implication is, of course, false.

Nome77 (talk) 06:08, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Looks like a letter by scientists desperate to ensure their research funding! -Roxy the dog™ woof 17:06, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Cryonics research is being funded at more than 50 different institutions? I had no idea so much cryonics research was going on. If true, wouldn't that be notable in itself? Cryobiologist (talk) 19:40, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

The letter is largely transhumanists and science fiction fans. Note how very few have any neuroscience expertise - David Gerard (talk) 20:54, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Is there an actual list of science fiction fans somewhere that the letter signatories can be compared against, or do you make that observation in the tautological sense that cryonics is science fiction? The point you raise about area of science expertise is more substantial. The situation is even worse than you put it. None of the few neuroscientists rendering opinions about cryonics are large-system cryobiologists, none of the cryobiologists rendering opinions about cryonics are neuroscientists, and none of the molecular nanotechnology theorists rendering opinions about cryonics are neuroscientists or cryobiologists, let alone large-system cryobiologists. Even the field of cryobiology is compartmentalized, so you can have bizarre spectacles like credentialed reproductive cryobiologists incorrectly arguing on TV shows with cryonicists that phenomena they observe in oocyte freezing also happen in other cell types, when they really don't. Or cryobiologists saying that only tiny things cooled really, really fast can vitrify because that's the only kind of vitrification they work with. With no graduate schools of cryobiology, and only a few hundred scientists in the world who self-identify as cryobiologists, there isn't even an accepted standard for who can call themselves a cryobiologist. All this means that any scientist offering an opinion about cryonics, pro or con, is going to be commenting on issues outside his/her credentials and, most likely, expertise. It's a problem not specific to signatories of this Letter. Cryobiologist (talk) 22:40, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

On the NPOV debate

If possible, I'd like to convince editors to move away from a "Let's try to tell the real truth about cryonics as fully as we can without triggering someone like Rolf to delete the content" stance and more towards a "Let's all bend over backwards to respect the spirit as well as the letter of NPOV and work together to create a great article that everyone can agree contains useful, interesting, and credible information" stance. :-) Given the current hostility toward cryonics by the mainstream medical and scientific community, NPOV suggests to me that there should be as many or more arguments against cryonics on this Web page than in favor of cryonics. I understand that pro-cryonics essays outnumber, and are better researched than, anti-cryonics essays, but that's the usual pattern in unorthodox beliefs and doesn't excuse us from NPOV! I dunno, maybe one way forward would be to identify the top N best-sourced and coherent pro-cryonics and anti-cryonics arguments or talking points and then avoid including other, implicit or explicit, arguments in the article. Other thoughts? Rolf H Nelson (talk) 08:30, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

@Rolf H Nelson, I can't comment one way or the other on what you are suggesting above, because I'm not sure that I understand or can predict what your intentions are for the content. However, I do think I might have something small to add to a conversation about WP:NPOV. I think it's possible that some editors here are confusing a "Wikipedia:neutral point of view", with a "public point of view". They are not quite the same thing according to the Wikipedia NPOV page, and that difference matters for Cryonics content. The neutral point of view page specifically states "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." I would like to bring editors attention to the word -published-. If you go to the average Joe on the street, describe cryonics to them, and ask them what they think, it is currently statistically likely (85% or more) that they will respond negatively. However, the vast majority of those people don't care enough about the topic to -write down- and publish their opinions. I would guess (although I'm not certain) that this generalized tendency to "not to write it down" also applies to most of the current medical practitioners in the medical establishment, or most uninvolved scientists. This has the net effect that you described, where pro-cryonics essays (possibly) outnumber anti-cryonics essays in quantity and research effort. If what you say about those proportions are true, (If it is true that there is more published positive material and negative material), then technically (If I am correct in my interpretation), it would mean we are supposed to be giving the Cryonics article a -positive slant-, to reflect the quantity of published material. In other words, according to Wikipedia policy we don't have to worry about what the public "thinks", or what the medical establishment "thinks", we only have to worry about what they publish. At the moment, I get the impression that some editors think that we are supposed to reflect the general thoughts of the public (or the "mainstream"), and not the quantity of published materials. -- Nome77 (talk) 09:00, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

You keep adding cryonics advocacy links as if they meet WP:RS, and they fundamentally do not - David Gerard (talk) 10:32, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

That entire argument gets one big {{citation needed}} - and, as David notes, citation in this case means reality-based reliable source. Guy (Help!) 10:35, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

@David Gerard, It appears that until this moment, you have been defining "reliable" and "reality-based" to suit your own anti-cryonics point of view. May I ask what is so "unreliable" about the National Institute of Health? Is the St. John's Law Review not reliable?

I'm also getting an impression that you've been defining all cryonics related websites or books as "unreliable", and proceeding to ask other editors to find sources that both "have nothing to do with cryonics", yet are "talking about cryonics". Have you noticed that most places that talk about cryonics are the ones interested in the topic? Just because a site is interested in the topic at hand, does not make it unreliable... nothing in WP:RS makes that kind of implication. That would be silly. When an editor actually meets your nearly impossible demands, you say that the discovered sources are still unreliable? Defining "all sites that are interested in cryonics", as "not a reliable source", is unlikely to be effective any longer. According to WP:RS:Biased sources, "Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject." -- Nome77 (talk) 10:53, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

@JzG (aka Guy), May I ask which claims are you asking for a citation of? I can't confirm the preponderance of positive or negative published cryonics materials, that was a claim that Rolf made in this section. (I only stated that if Rolf were correct, it would affect how we should adjust this article according to NPOV proportionality rules.) If you are requesting citations for the Scientists Open Letter, I have supplied those above, and in the Cryonics page itself, inside the open letter section. -- Nome77 (talk) 12:42, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

The vast majority of claims supportive of cryonics, are unsupported by reliable independent sources. Obviously the issue at hand is your attempts to spam the "open letter", for which we have a maximum of one sentence that can be supported by any RSes at all, namely that it exists. The rest of the para over which you are edit warring is straight up promotional bollocks and has no place on Wikipedia. We do cover whackaloon groups who run lists of "scientists" who support their position (many, of course, turn out not to be scientists). We also cover notable satire on such nonsense, e.g. Project Steve. You have failed to provide any compelling evidence that this list is significant, or that the claims should be stated on Wikipedia in their own words.

FYI, the number of genuinely legitimate fields of scientific inquiry who feel the need to use online petitions with a few tens of names run by self-described institutes of "evidence-based" whatever to "prove" that they are indeed a legitimate field of inquiry, is precisely zero. That doesn't mean that this technique is not used. Examples of groups that try to use lists of signatories to confer a legitimacy that is not drawn form the peer-reviewed literature include: creationists, free energy groups, chiropractors, homeopaths, energy healers, parapsychology believers. Notice something they all have in common? Hint: it's to do with a profound lack of empirical evidence for their core doctrines. Guy (Help!) 13:52, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

@Nome As I said above, "pro-cryonics essays outnumber anti-cryonics essays". However, the scientific and medical communities are hostile to cryonics. It's common sense to me that if the mainstream scientific community is strongly against something, NPOV dictates the Wikipedia article can't be in strongly in favor of it. If there's something that needs to be added to the WP:NPOV page to make that clear, please tell me what text would make that clearer to you and I'll go ask the page editors at WP:NPOV to consider adding that text in so that in the future people won't be confused about the topic like you seem to be. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 06:01, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

The most compelling reason I can give for why this letter is "significant", is that it is the core cryonics belief held by nearly all cryonicists. Do you think that that cryonicists would have built the (nonprofit) cryonics organizations, contributed funding, built the infrastructure and done the research, to make cryopreservation possible for those who wish it... if they did not believe that there was a nonzero science-based possibility of future resuscitation for cryonics patients? The open letter articulates that possibility. You don't have to believe that these are "real scientists". You just have to believe that multiple reliable sources have said so. You don't have to believe that this is a valid (or accurate) point of view, you just have to believe that this point of view is valid to cryonicists. They are, after all, the only reason this article exists. I'm not trying to prove this point of view to you. I'm only trying to show you that it is the point of view that others have about cryonics, and therefore it belongs in an article that is purporting to have a NPOV about cryonics. -- Nome77 (talk) 14:06, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Do you think that that cryonicists would have built the (nonprofit) cryonics organizations, contributed funding, built the infrastructure and done the research, to make cryopreservation possible for those who wish it... if they did not believe that there was a nonzero science-based possibility of future resuscitation for cryonics patients? Sorry, but speculation on your part about the beliefs and motivations of others cannot be used to establish notability. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:10, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

@MjolnirPants, The NPOV page states that notability is not required for article content. "The notability guidelines do not apply to article or list content (with the exception that some lists restrict inclusion to notable items or people). Content coverage within a given article or list (i.e. whether something is noteworthy enough to be mentioned in the article or list) is governed by the principle of due weight and other content policies." -- Nome77 (talk) 14:42, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

@Nome77 Many editors use "notability" (the english word) to mean WP:WEIGHT rather than WP:NOTABILITY; you're probably better off focusing on addressing the underlying concerns about "due weight" rather than nitpicking @User:MjolnirPants' exact use of words. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 06:01, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. You registered this account mere days ago, you have fewer than 100 edits, and you are arguing the toss over policy with people who have been here for years and have more edits in the an hour than you have in your entire history. The onus is on you to demonstrate the significance and validity of your proposed edits, by reference to reliable independent sources. You cite some passing mentions, which look to e based on press releases. These don't really make a compelling case even to note the existence of this letter; the content you want to include is drawn almost exclusively from an unreliable source with a vested interest and is unambiguously inappropriate. There is a limit to how many times we are prepared to explain things to a dingle-purpose editor before we decide to cut our losses and get rid of you. Guy (Help!) 23:31, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Hello JzG (aka Guy), From your comment, it appears that this has become personal or emotional to you. The policies are not overly complex, nor take years to understand. I only mention the applicable verses to contradict any incorrect attitudes or policy statements. To cite an example, several editors have repeatedly argued "notability", while the policy states that with a few narrow exceptions, notability is not required for article content, only for articles themselves. I realize that although the policy is not complex, it's rather long so I'm guessing that even though some people have been here for years, it is unlikely that all of them have read (or remember) the applicable passages cover to cover. Your comments seem terse and angry right now. The entrenched nature of this debate is why I have promoted this issue to the appropriate dispute resolution channel. Though I can understand why it would be to your benefit if I was not an editor, it seems inappropriate to threaten to "get rid of people". Please keep discussion civil and don't make such aggressive, personally targeted statements. Let's keep it about the issues, and not about the people, shall we? -- Nome77 (talk) 00:49, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

There's a difference between explaining details of fringe beliefs versus making an encyclopedia article a soapbox for fringe beliefs. You created a stir by essentially transcribing the talking points of the Open Letter into the article, and devoting a disproportionate amount of space to the Letter relative to quoted opinions of skeptical scientists. In the dispute resolution discussion you said that you wanted scientist signatories of the Letter to be characterized in the article as prominent or otherwise special (some like Minsky and Merkle are well-known scientists, but IMHO most aren't), which also comes across as trying to copy over horn-blowing of the hosting site to the article. The existence of the Open Letter, and brief neutral disclosure of its existence in the Cryonics article, has the same legitimate encyclopedic purpose as it did in the references that your hard work found. It's existence speaks to the issue of where along the fringe science continuum cryonics lies. Is cryonics like flat earth beliefs, for which you'd never get support from actual academic physical scientists like the Open Letter, or is cryonics more like LENR, another fringe science belief but with a small number of actual accomplished scientists who take it seriously? I believe that communicating that detail is the encyclopedic significance of the Letter, and the context in which it should be presented. Finally, note that JzG is not just an editor, but an admin. That means he's earned the authority for his threats to be more than idle. Cryobiologist (talk) 01:53, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Hello Cryobiologist, Given the current political climate of all editors, I agree with your analysis of the way that the open letter should be included in the article. You'll find no argument here, and if people do not want to include the words prominent or respectable in the article text, I would of course compromise on that point. A minimized mention is significantly better than none, and I'm proud to be making the effort to give a meaningful voice to the cryonicists who work so hard towards their goals. The reason I was originally "pushy" on the issue of including the open letter to begin with (and bold with my edits), was it seemed obvious to me that some editors were hostile (closed) to its inclusion. I do think the public deserves to know that some scientists take cryonics seriously. Who knows what effects this article may have on the end-of-life decisions of individual readers? Cryonicists are under the belief that they are potentially saving lives, so accuracy of related information is pretty important to them. Regarding JzG, I do realize that he is an admin, and he (generally) has ban authority. I give him the general respect I would give any person. Still, I don't appreciate his previous easy dismissal of minority viewpoints, or directing any attacks at me personally. I'd rather focus on the issues at face value. So I let him know, as I would let anyone know. At the moment, it could be considered administrator abuse for him to ban me, because we are both listed on the current dispute. (Administrators are not supposed to ban anyone to gain an unfair advantage during a dispute resolution.) Even though these rules afford some small protections against any unlikely choices to abuse admin powers, I intend to faithfully work with (all) other editors towards a resolution on this topic, and I hold no ill will towards those with differing viewpoints. If I am eventually banned due to dislike by any opposing editors, I can live with that too. I would prefer to be a contributing member of course. The beauty of this system is that everyone gets a voice, so long as they behave according to guidelines. I'd like to support this system. Sincerely, -- Nome77 (talk) 03:11, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

PS (Off Topic), you mentioned "cold fusion", I was blown away when I first discovered that: Yes, people have built working Farnsworth Style Fusors at home. (Radiation hazards and all). The Professor Farnsworth character on "Futurama" is named after it's inventor. Though, the device does not produce more energy from fusion than it consumes. -- Nome77 (talk) 04:52, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

@Nome77: Hello JzG (aka Guy), From your comment, it appears that this has become personal or emotional to you. Be careful, you are edging into bad territory here. WP requires us to assume good faith with other editors. Guy is a far more experienced editor than you, and there is a lot more to the policies than just what you can read on the policy and guideline pages. You really should give his judgement more credit. Furthermore, your policy arguments are generally taking the form of wikilawyering in that you're clinging to the letter of policy to override the spirit. WP should be full of notable, verifiable, accurate information, even if that means not everything sticks to the perfect letter of the policies. It should not be a soapbox for any POV, even if you really think it's the correct POV.MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:40, 24 March 2016 (UTC)