Voodoo science

[snopes]

Cars that run on water. A perpetual energy machine. Reviving the frozen.

True? Of course not.

And it's Professor Robert Park's job to prove these and many other myths wrong because - though hard to believe - some people claim to have discovered or invented them.

A one-man crusade against a folly of miracle cures, wonder creams and weight-loss pills, Park is a nationally revered authority on "voodoo science," a term that refers to false breakthroughs - some laughable, some simply fraudulent.

http://www.diamondbackonline.com/hom...c-eb5b4a6ab144

[diddy]

James Randi writes a weekly column that exposes all sorts of fraudsters, Thankfully he not alone.

[inkrose115]

I try to keep up with the edge.org, James Randi's site, Skeptic Magazine, quakcwatch.org and the like. It's always fun to hear what the pseudo-science nuts are up to next.

[matches]

I get Bob Park's email list of news items every couple of weeks.

It's usually interesting the things people fall for, though his negativity towards manned space travel and nonscience related political items can be annoying.

All in all its very cool.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

"Reviving the frozen" doesn't belong in the same category as perpetual motion machines... It isn't impossible by definition, only impossible at this point in time due to technical difficulties.

(And...have not various small animals -- frogs or whatnot? -- been frozen and then revived?)

It is not entirely absurd for people to have their heads frozen at the time of death, in hopes of a material "resurrection" by some advanced future technology.

Silas (Just extremely highly absurd.)

[matches]

Originally Posted by Silas Sparkhammer

"Reviving the frozen" doesn't belong in the same category as perpetual motion machines... It isn't impossible by definition, only impossible at this point in time due to technical difficulties.

(And...have not various small animals -- frogs or whatnot? -- been frozen and then revived?)

It is not entirely absurd for people to have their heads frozen at the time of death, in hopes of a material "resurrection" by some advanced future technology.

Silas (Just extremely highly absurd.)

I don't know of any animal that has been "frozen" with all of thier bodily functions ceaseing, and being revived at a later time. There are certain animals in the arctic that survive despite having body temperatures ocasionally dipping below 0, but those are animals that are still alive and have evolved to this climate, not creatures that get frozen in blocks of ice, and thaw out days later.

Given that all current cryrogenic processes occur after death, and at a point where all known possible methods of resurections have been exhausted, and a point where the very early stages of decomposition have begun. It is probably fair to say that modern cryrogenic processes fall into the arean of junk science, if for no other reason than there is no possible way to know that the processes we are performing could ever possibly work. It is possible we may someday find a cellular antifreeze that will keep ice crystals form destroying the cells of the recently departed, such an antifreeze is not in current use, and as such those people being frozen today are most likely highly dead and unable to be bodily resurected by science.

Again some day the field of cryonics could advance to a point where people can die and be resurected later, but for those spending thousands of dollars today, in such hopes, they'd be just as wise to wait for the second comming to acheive the same effect.

[Eddylizard]

The thing that would really bother me about cryonics, even if it advanced to the stage where it was feasible is, I forked out my money, and you've stuck my body in the freezer (trite description.)

It may take a few decades or even centuries for medical science to work out how to cure what I died of.

I have no guarantee that sometime during that period, the company won't go out of business. Or indeed that they'll suffer a catastrophic power cut, on the day that the janitor forgot to check the diesel levels in the backup generator. Leading to my uncontrolled defrosting.

Of course it won't matter to me really.

[geminilee]

Originally Posted by matches

I don't know of any animal that has been "frozen" with all of thier bodily functions ceaseing, and being revived at a later time.

I do: frogs

The heart rate of a wood frog, or any ectothermic ("cold-blooded") animal, strongly depends on its body temperature. When the frog's temperature falls to near the freezing mark, the heart pulses slowly (only a few beats per minute), but quite regularly, and blood is circulated throughout the body. In fact, the heart continues to beat for many hours after the frog's tissues have begun to freeze. This is important because the cryoprotectant, glucose, is made in the liver and must be circulated to cells throughout the body.

However, later in the freezing process the heart stops completely. Ice encases the organ and forms inside the muscle and the chambers. There's no need for a working pump now because the blood, too, is frozen. This state of arrested heart function can be tolerated for many days and perhaps months, but upon thawing the contractions spontaneously resume. Imagine our amazement when we witnessed those first few blips on a thawing frog's EKG!

[Silas Sparkhammer]

geminilee: thank'ee for confirming my dim memory; I had thought I'd read about frogs being frozen and revived!

matches: one interesting science-fiction notion is that, although a frozen human brain is ruined by the freezing, some future nano-tech or 3-D scanning process might be able to go in to the brain and recover the information contained in the dead brain, for imprinting on a "host" brain, or a computer emulator, or whatnot.

I know that my post was in the nature of a nitpick, but there are "degrees" of the impossible. It just might be (?) that some sort of "perpetual motion machine" might be fashioned to harness "zero point energy" (although I have my doubts); but running an automobile on water is just plain out.

Silas

[Alchemy]

Originally Posted by Silas Sparkhammer

matches: one interesting science-fiction notion is that, although a frozen human brain is ruined by the freezing, some future nano-tech or 3-D scanning process might be able to go in to the brain and recover the information contained in the dead brain, for imprinting on a "host" brain, or a computer emulator, or whatnot.

Our consciousness is not the material that composes our brain, it is the varying but never-ceasing electrochemical ballet which performs within it. Can you perfectly recreate a ballet you have never seen by studying the stage (or, in your case, the ruins of the stage) on which it was performed?

You can cool the tissues, reduce metabolism many times over, thus greatly reducing energy requirement, but unless you're frozen to absolute zero you won't be able to stop all chemical activity. A frozen fellow's tissues (assuming they are not damaged) will consume their energy stores, and then die, and then decay. Maybe cryonics can buy a person more time - hours, days, months, even years. But as the treatment cannot be started until after braindeath I don't quite understand what they think they are preserving.

Even if it were possible, I'm also curious about how keen we are to bring the dead back to life just because we can.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Originally Posted by Alchemy

Our consciousness is not the material that composes our brain, it is the varying but never-ceasing electrochemical ballet which performs within it. Can you perfectly recreate a ballet you have never seen by studying the stage (or, in your case, the ruins of the stage) on which it was performed?

You're probably right...but it might be a little more like re-creating a ballet from a still photograph of it. Who knows? We're talking about future tech of the sort we can't predict...as far advanced as 3-D NMI scanning is ahead of Roentgen's earliest X-Rays.

I don't believe it, but I won't reject it as "Impossible, Class I."

Even if it were possible, I'm also curious about how keen we are to bring the dead back to life just because we can.

The fantasy, of course, is that the person's investments have grown to such a degree that he can buy the right to a new life. i.e., his estate can pay us so much that we agree to restore him. I mean, for a couple of million dollars, wouldn't you gladly perform the necessary surgery to bring back, say, Howard Hughes or King Croesus -- supposing, of course, that their fortunes still existed in trust for them to come back to?

Obviously, this is only a fantasy, but, hey, if someone wants his head frozen in a jar somewhere when he's died, who am I to ban it? (We spend a lot more money on churches and graves, in hopes of an entirely spiritual resurrection; the freedom to waste our resources is a vital First Amendment liberty!)

Silas

[Alchemy]

Originally Posted by Silas Sparkhammer

You're probably right...but it might be a little more like re-creating a ballet from a still photograph of it. Who knows? We're talking about future tech of the sort we can't predict...as far advanced as 3-D NMI scanning is ahead of Roentgen's earliest X-Rays.

It just seems to me only a little bit less absurd than trying to resurrect a person from a non-frozen corpse, and has shades of holistic medicine. Perhaps someday we can mimic the human brain, but I think it asks a bit much to recreate a living brain from a long-dead one. One might as well have time machines, which would make the cryonics thing quite unneccessary - just have time-paramedics pop in at the moment of your death, bring you to the future-hospital, treat you, and (if you like) bring you back. It's future tech, after all.

I don't believe it, but I won't reject it as "Impossible, Class I."

I'd agree, but perhaps only because I have education in physics and not biology.

The fantasy, of course, is that the person's investments have grown to such a degree that he can buy the right to a new life. i.e., his estate can pay us so much that we agree to restore him. I mean, for a couple of million dollars, wouldn't you gladly perform the necessary surgery to bring back, say, Howard Hughes or King Croesus -- supposing, of course, that their fortunes still existed in trust for them to come back to?

I thought of this too! Seems this would work for the first few hundred patients, but after a while you're going to have massive inflation and tons of really annoying pseudo-immortals running about. It doesn't seem economically stable - eventually the value of future currency will drop to the point that the cryonic funds won't have any value in comparison to the cost of reviving folk. Easy money defeats the purpose of money.

Obviously, this is only a fantasy, but, hey, if someone wants his head frozen in a jar somewhere when he's died, who am I to ban it?

Indeed; one of the essential elements of capitalism is the freedom to waste our own money and labor and time on things like gambling, sports, art, entertainment, charity, etc.

This post is giving me a number of short story ideas . . .

[matches]

Originally Posted by Silas Sparkhammer

Obviously, this is only a fantasy, but, hey, if someone wants his head frozen in a jar somewhere when he's died, who am I to ban it? (We spend a lot more money on churches and graves, in hopes of an entirely spiritual resurrection; the freedom to waste our resources is a vital First Amendment liberty!)

But that's the point, it is fantasy. A frog that has evolved over millions of years to survive being frozen is very differnt than droping a corpse in a vat of liquid nitrogen and crossing your fingers.

It is junk science, because there is no science behind what is being done. Essentially, cryrogenics is a modern day equivilant of mummification. The people performing the taks do the things they think might be helpful to the eventual resurection of the body, but those tasks are based solely on conjecture and assumption, not on any actual experiments or tests.

And again what is at the heart of this issue is that the body in question has ceased to function. In the case of the frog it was a living frog who was slowly frozen, and due to its unique physiology was able to survive. One question not answered in the frog experiment is exactly how long the frog can go like that before resurection becomes impossible.

You are right in the that one can do with their remains as they wish, and are welcome to belive what ever they wish about their eventual chance at imortality. What Dr. Park objects to is the claim that there is some sciecne behind the practice of cryrogenics. There simply isn't a science there, just a great deal of hope, and people making money off of that hope. I hope to be bodily resurected at the second comming of Christ, but I wouldn't say that it was science.

Science must be testable, and provable, cryrogenics is neither. In truth perpetual motion machines aren't "impossible" simply like cryrogenics, highly improbable. If a scientist could produce a machine that provided unlimited energy scientist would all aplaude and begin rewriting text books accordingly. The same is true for cryrogenics. Until an adequate theory on why this should work, and how it can be possible is put forward, one shouldn't claim the mantel of science. As to making a buck off the hopes of those looking for perpetual motion, faster than light communication, or imortality, I always defer to the words of P.T. Barnum.

"A fool and his money were lucky to get together in the first place".

Although Mr. Park chuckles at my hope for bodily reserection I doubt he has the time to discount my unscientific belife. It is those who claim science where faith only exists that earn his iritation.

[Barns & No Bull]

Originally Posted by Silas Sparkhammer

matches: one interesting science-fiction notion is that, although a frozen human brain is ruined by the freezing, some future nano-tech or 3-D scanning process might be able to go in to the brain and recover the information contained in the dead brain, for imprinting on a "host" brain, or a computer emulator, or whatnot.

I know that my post was in the nature of a nitpick, but there are "degrees" of the impossible. It just might be (?) that some sort of "perpetual motion machine" might be fashioned to harness "zero point energy" (although I have my doubts); but running an automobile on water is just plain out.

I don't know how anyone could assign "degrees of possibility" with these kinds of things. As much as we now know about brains, they remain largely enigmatic. Brains really aren't like any computer/software we can design. It's questionable if we ever could do such a thing without using real neurons.

Human brains have massive parallel processing and specialized modules that have important relations to each other. Hormonal influence on processing is critical for function and I don't know how you even begin to simulate that artificially. If the question is about "saving" a dead person so-to-speak, I would expect more prospects from brain transplant rather than some way of "recovering data" from a brain and then "uploading" it into another brain.