Talk:Cryonics
- I have included the relevant policies and the MOS in my edit summary: WP:LOADED, WP:IMPARTIAL, and WP:TSI. I'm sure you're as familiar with those as I am.
- The tone throughout the article is inappropriate. The policies are well known.
- Contributions are appreciated, and it's best to stay civil, for the benefit of the Encyclopedia and the editors involved. That does of course include the edit summaries.
- It's hard to miss the many threads in the archive, the existence of venues carrying long and tiresome engagements, and the patterns of the arguments. Could you remind me of how many reverts are allowed per day on this topic?
- This is not a dispute over the facts or the sources, but the tone of the article, and the use of specific words throughout. That, as I see in a summary, degrades the article.
- The characterization as pseudoscience and quackery is shown prominently in the lead, as well as the skepticism of the practice by the scientific community; the issues with the technology are explained and cited in each relevant section. Even newer citations, from good and respectable sources are available for use. It's the wording in the prose that's problematic. The use of "corpse" throughout, in place of "body", creates the impression that you're reading about horror fiction. (Leaves a bad taste to be frank.) Few times is it used in the sources, and WP:IMPARTIAL, all that, still applies.
- You may not have noticed reverting a 2022 citation [1] about the twins born from frozen 30-year embryos. An example from that particular section, the order of "animal cells, human embryos, and even some organized tissues" is a clear and unambiguous illustration of this problem. Others aplenty.
- My wording is reasonable and I hope to reach a consensus here without excessive reverts, so that other things can be worked on.
- Again it is good and best to collaborate and to keep the arguments short, for the sake of all. As they say, there are No Angry Mastodons here, except the ones we raise from the frozen ground. In good and excellent faith here.
Skullers (talk) 05:06, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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You're seeking to replace clear language with fuzzy language. Sometimes telling as it is has to be appreciated. tgeorgescu (talk) 05:35, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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Exactly. The current language is careful and accurate. The mooted changes are either wrong, ambiguous or fringey. A news piece about embryos is of no relevance here. Bon courage (talk) 05:54, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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- What's ambiguous about "bodies"? Celestial bodies? Newtonian bodies? Who's going to not know what it refers to in this context? Skullers (talk) 09:46, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- The additional reference about long-term cryopreservation of human embryos supports the statements made (cryopreservation of cells, tissues, and embryos). The section also needs updating. The 2015 article was 7 years before the event. Secondly, the text "animal cells, human embryos, and even some organized tissues" for some reason emphasizes tissues over the entire body, which is much more relevant to long-term cryopreservation of humans. Vitrified, stored in liquid nitrogen, for 30 years, brought to life. They were in fact selected for being stored the longest.[2] Embryos are made of tissues and tissues are made of cells, to put human embryos in the middle and then to emphasize "and even some organized tissues" is something else. Skullers (talk) 09:46, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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- Bodies can be living; corpses aren't. Cryopreservation is a separate topic, and not relevant here. Bon courage (talk) 10:03, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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Does not exist in a vacuum; relevant advances in cryopreservation and cryobiology are applied to cryonics and the relationship and distinction is discussed in academic sources on the subject.
- While it's possible and practical with embryos, to then explicitly say it's impossible with anything else, going forward, is something other than skepticism. Matters of information theory and of available technology determine the outcome. That the required tech, in this case nanotech is not sufficiently advanced (as of) is really not enough to state with confidence that something is not possible. Not impractical or currently not possible or speculative. Nanotechnology is mentioned exactly once, ought to be expanded on. Is it hard to believe how many times the same things were said about AI-anything, with just as much certainty, only to move the goalposts? Much like the definitions of life/death, except faster. Skullers (talk) 04:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- This is WP:NOTAFORUM. This article is based on reliable sources. Ones about cryonics. Bon courage (talk) 04:49, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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Exactly. The current language is careful and accurate. The mooted changes are either wrong, ambiguous or fringey. A news piece about embryos is of no relevance here. Bon courage (talk) 05:54, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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Replacing the plain language of the article with the industry's preferred marketing euphemisms is not making the article more neutral, it is moving in the opposite direction. MrOllie (talk) 14:30, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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What are the marketing euphemisms? Bodies? Actual euphemisms exist, such as references to "patients", already in quotes. Skullers (talk) 04:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, and you removed them in favor of non-quoted euphemistic terms like 'subjects', 'bodies', 'clients' etc. That's not neutrality, that is embracing industry marketing jargon. MrOllie (talk) 13:42, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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What are the marketing euphemisms? Bodies? Actual euphemisms exist, such as references to "patients", already in quotes. Skullers (talk) 04:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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I don't see any problem with calling corpses "corpses". Other articles about the disposal of human remains use that wording. (And, of course, "human remains") It's not the preferred euphemism of the cryo companies, but that's because they are biased and have a very obvious axe to grind. Following their lead would take the article away from neutral. ApLundell (talk) 17:06, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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And it's not as if this very point hasn't been discussed here ad nauseam. Bon courage (talk) 17:17, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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Multiple independent editors have taken issue with the wording, and for good reasons, and brought up reliable sources that use the word "body" exclusively. Some are currently used as references, including academic ones. A problem is that they're not here all at the same time or watch the changes vigilantly or even partake in what has been described as edit wars. I don't remember even doing two reverts in a row, let alone that fast. Skullers (talk) 09:46, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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Every fringe article will have 'multiple independent editors' who take issue with it if you run through the talk page. That does not necessarily mean their concerns warrant a change. MrOllie (talk) 13:34, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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There is a tendency to get carried away and go the extra mile. The same language would be used against religion and anything related to it, if it was permitted. The application and interpretation of undue, contentious, not teaching the controversy etc suggests one no longer has to maintain encyclopedic tone or write in good taste or adhere to norms as in other subjects. Even articles on terrorists aren't written that way. Another thing is that neutrality is essentially made to be impossible, you are either with or against, with nothing in-between, as with political subjects. Skullers (talk) 04:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- encyclopedic tone does not mean WP:FALSEBALANCE. When mainstream sources are critical of a topic so to should be the Wikipedia article. - MrOllie (talk) 13:38, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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There is a tendency to get carried away and go the extra mile. The same language would be used against religion and anything related to it, if it was permitted. The application and interpretation of undue, contentious, not teaching the controversy etc suggests one no longer has to maintain encyclopedic tone or write in good taste or adhere to norms as in other subjects. Even articles on terrorists aren't written that way. Another thing is that neutrality is essentially made to be impossible, you are either with or against, with nothing in-between, as with political subjects. Skullers (talk) 04:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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Every fringe article will have 'multiple independent editors' who take issue with it if you run through the talk page. That does not necessarily mean their concerns warrant a change. MrOllie (talk) 13:34, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- I can see the ad nauseam. Ought to be avoided as a time sink. One could attempt to summarize it with one robot or another. (beans) Skullers (talk) 04:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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Multiple independent editors have taken issue with the wording, and for good reasons, and brought up reliable sources that use the word "body" exclusively. Some are currently used as references, including academic ones. A problem is that they're not here all at the same time or watch the changes vigilantly or even partake in what has been described as edit wars. I don't remember even doing two reverts in a row, let alone that fast. Skullers (talk) 09:46, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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And it's not as if this very point hasn't been discussed here ad nauseam. Bon courage (talk) 17:17, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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This is not an issue of WP:OWN, but one against many. And as someone with over a decade of experience in the medical field, "corpse" is a neutral term for a dead body. You don't have to like it, but there it is. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 17:28, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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As far as I know, medicine is practiced on living subjects while cryonics is considered to be in the realm of funeral services. Skullers (talk) 09:46, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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But the vendors typically describe[3] it as "preserving life" or "pausing death". Hence the quackery. Bon courage (talk) 10:05, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Suppose it would be weird to say "we'll have your corpse frozen for $280k!" Generally, they don't claim to diagnose or treat any illness or condition but to prevent decomposition, minimize the damage to the cells, the formation of ice crystals etc. Skullers (talk) 04:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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Medicine has to deal with the dead quite a bit, unfortunately. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:24, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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So I've looked around a bit, the language varies in different ways, with some patterns:
- Body bag
- Medical examiner
- Autopsy, ugh.
- Ancient Egyptian funerary practices#Mummification
- This very subject (cryonics), sources use both words, sometimes interchangeably
- Interment. Generally people tend to use more respectful language.
- Macabre. Who would want to spend that much time examining the details? It would be appropriate to add a footnote on etymology and uses. From Latin corpus (meaning body) and before that, from Old English all the way to PIE. Not like it needs a separate etymology section or anything. - Skullers (talk) 04:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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So I've looked around a bit, the language varies in different ways, with some patterns:
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But the vendors typically describe[3] it as "preserving life" or "pausing death". Hence the quackery. Bon courage (talk) 10:05, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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As far as I know, medicine is practiced on living subjects while cryonics is considered to be in the realm of funeral services. Skullers (talk) 09:46, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Some recent and peer-reviewed sources are found, will take some time to read and examine references and to present things with integrity. Does take a lot more patience than many other things. Skullers (talk) 04:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are aspects of cryonics that can face reasonable skepticism, such as whether it preserves sufficiently well the brain of people, whether it will be possible to recover the brain or its information without too much damage, and whether the resulting person would really be the same person. Cryonics is highly speculative.
But the article dismisses the concept as "quackery", and regularly shows a strong stance against it. Cryonics is controversial, but I don't think the mediatic and research coverage justifies it. Healthy skepticism cuts both way, even supposing that it's unlikely to work, we should clearly explain the reasons why it may or may not work without making such strong judgments. Alenoach (talk) 15:24, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- Mainstream science has a strong POV, so per WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE so should this article. We've had a number of dicussions about the 'quackery' and 'psuedoscience' lines. The sources are strong and so is the editorial consensus. MrOllie (talk) 15:28, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- Skepticism is not the same as relentlessly "both-sidesing" everything.
- The burden of proof is very clearly on the side of the people taking money for doing a thing, not on the people saying there's no proof.
- Literally anything might work, but a crazy idea doesn't automatically get put on equal footing with other, legitimate, experimental treatments just because people are turning it into a business. And there's nothing about "skepticism" that "cuts both ways" and forces us to pretend otherwise. ApLundell (talk) 00:48, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- Healthy skepticism cuts both way
- As ApLundell states, no, that's not the case. We do not include false "balance" when mainstream science is very clear about the facts. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 13:25, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- Semen cryopreservation (1954)
- Embryo cryopreservation (1984)
- Oocyte cryopreservation (1986)
- Ovarian tissue cryopreservation (2004 to now)
- Organ cryopreservation for animals (Still under research)
- Organ cryopreservation for human
- Brain cryopreservation for animals
- Brain cryopreservation for human
- Small animal whole body cryopreservation (e.g. mouse)
- Larger animal whole body cryopreservation (e.g. monkeys, dogs, cats, pigs)
- Cryonics for Human
- Repeat and repeat the experiment for Cryonics for humans
- Commercial Deployment of Cryonics for humans
- Massive Deployment of Cryonics for humans
Cloud29371 (talk) 03:52, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]