Talk:Ben Best

I honestly can't believe that the lot of you have put up with these cryonics types for so long. It's creepy how attached they are to their pet theories. Colonel of Squirrels (talk) 05:58, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You mean "theories", not theories, right? Conservative Punk (talk) 06:01, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * What in the world? What do you mean, "put up with"? Luke (talk) 16:53, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I mean that it's getting tiresome to open up recent changes and see you and Best spamming the cryonics article. Look at your edit history: 128 of 134 edits have been to Cryonics or its Talk page. That comes out to around 7.5 per day. Face it, you're not trying to integrate into the community, you're here because of your near-religious obsession with cryonics. Colonel of Squirrels (talk) 17:07, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm expected to "integrate into the community"? News to me. I just came for the cryonics. Luke (talk) 01:19, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Please justify
This sounds like unjustified trash-talking to me. Why is Ben a pseudoscience promoter? Is it suddenly a proven fact that cryonics is a pseudoscience? Luke (talk) 16:35, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not even a technology, let alone a science. It's a dream, albeit an interesting one.  20:12, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Simple: it is a pseudoscience because it is a technology that does not exist, albeit even if it does not exist yet. Cryonic reanimation is nowhere even close to being in existence. Ergo, cryonics is little more than fantasy and science fiction. FrankThePseudoscientist (talk) 23:47, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You're blurring some lines there. Not everything about cryonics is reanimation oriented. Preservation and assaying the quality of preservation does tend to involve actual science and technology, believe it or not. Reanimation itself is speculation ("science fiction" if that's your preferred term for it), but it is not marketed as current science. Luke (talk) 01:13, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * No, but it's the whole point of the industry. 01:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The claim I'm contesting here is that cryonics is pseudoscience, not that the cryonics industry is founded on speculation. Luke (talk) 05:27, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You just have no clue, do you? CRYONICS IS PSEUDOSCIENCE it is not based on reality, and offer little more thjan woo to it's victims "customers".  The industry is founded on something far sillier than speculation.  It's founded on fiction and wishful thinking.  05:30, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I have no clue what you're talking about, correct. You have yet to tell me what your argument is for cryonics being based on wishful thinking or a case of pseudoscience. As it is you are just making positive claims regarding a topic you don't seem to know much about. Luke (talk) 15:41, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

"You have yet to tell me what your argument is for cryonics being based on wishful thinking or a case of pseudoscience." please produce one case of a cryonically-frozen human who has been revived so I know it isn't wishful thinking. And then please produce a bibliography of peer-reviewed articles from the standard medical/scientific journals so I know that it's not pseudoscience. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 15:45, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You're shifting the burden of proof by pretending cryonics claims something it doesn't. Cryonics is not based on claiming that patients are still alive, it is based on not assuming they are dead. There's a crucial difference there. Luke (talk) 15:55, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Alright, show me the peer-reviewed articles from the standard journals that back this up. Show me a cryonically-frozen specimen that fits the standard definition of "alive." TheoryOfPractice (talk) 15:58, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * This is great. Luke is debating like a creationist. It's certainly true that parts of cryonics are based on use of extant technologies. However, these technologies are used toward a speculative goal that has not a single shred of evidence in favor of it. It's pure science fiction. What's your objection to calling cryonics pseudoscience? 16:03, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The premise of cryonics is that current patients may at some point be considered alive by future standards. That is not a positive claim like everyone here is evidently assuming. I don't understand how it can be justifiably labeled pseudoscience in the absence of positive claims. Luke (talk) 16:34, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Alright, show me the peer-reviewed articles from the standard journals that back this up. Show me a cryonically-frozen specimen that fits the standard definition of "not dead." TheoryOfPractice (talk) 16:37, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Again you're missing the point. Speculation is not a claim. In the context of cryonics, the more conservative course of action is to preserve regardless of speculation as to whether they are dead or not. Nobody is claiming that cryonics patients are still alive or "not dead", nor are they claiming that patients are "dead" or "not alive", it is regarded as pure speculation either way. Luke (talk) 19:35, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Here's the problem: you can't have it both ways. Either your speculation that there may exist some technology that can resurrect dead and frozen humans is idle, in which case what's your point in engaging in this discussion; or you're tacitly making the positive claim, which you are, that there's enough justification in waiting/hoping/praying for this nonexistent technology to justify your family spending tens or hundreds of thousands on freezing your body for what may be eternity. I will not support removing the pseudoscience category from this article. I would support adding a fairy tale or science fiction category if that would make you feel better. 17:10, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * And since I came to this discussion late (I was avoiding it because I've been busy debating creationists elsewhere), I wonder what you interest in all of this is anyway. Anytime I encounter someone so wedded to a fringe belief that he's willing to go out of his way to clog up a wiki on the far reaches of the internet, it's been someone with a vested interest in the belief, whether it's a matter of religion and special creationism, homeopathy, reflexology, or in your case what I suspect is a financial interest. 17:13, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

(undenting) This is much better because you mention that it is a tacit claim and cite specific evidence that such a claim is being made, i.e. the zeal of cryonics advocates. But I still think you are missing the point in that the tacit claim being made by such zeal is not regarding whether reanimation will work, but whether it is ethically a good idea to take the chance of reanimation working. You might disagree with such ethical claims, as you might with the ethical claims of PETA or the pro-life movement, but that does not mean they constitute scientifically relevant claims as the term "pseudoscience" implies. The ethical claim is not predicated upon the success of reanimation, but rather the possibility of success, and a supposed obligation to increase the probability by whatever valid scientific means can be made available. Luke (talk) 19:35, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I wasn't talking about zeal really. I was talking about the degree to which adherents are in some manner suspending their disbelief or, alternatively, simply hoping for something for which there's no present basis for hoping. It's not strictly an ethical question and I wasn't bringing the ethical question up. I think you're deflecting and still don't get your objection to calling something you (apparently?) admit by my terminology is tacitly based on non-existent technology pseudoscience. 19:39, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Abuse and Intellectual Harrassment
The authors of this page should be ashamed of themselves. &mdash; Unsigned, by: 86.138.133.95 / talk / contribs

"Green ink"
What is? Does it mean saving trees by using the web? If so we should write snartikle. 02:46, 12 April 2010 (UTC)


 * And here I was assuming the British would understand. There's a stereotype that particularly batshit correspondents write their proofs that relativity squares the cryonic circle using green ink. There does need to be an article, and I expect I'll have to write it *nails hand to forehead* You should read Best's PDF, it's really special - David Gerard (talk) 21:52, 17 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh, no I don't - it's in Wikipedia! "In British journalism, Green Ink is supposedly a major identifying characteristic of written correspondence from self-aggrandising pedants, cranks, charlatans and eccentrics." - David Gerard (talk) 21:55, 17 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I use green ink. 21:57, 17 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, of course you do. You edit here. - David Gerard (talk) 22:00, 17 April 2010 (UTC)