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timtyler comments on Reasons for being rational - Less Wrong
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That does seem to be a useful heuristic. DOOM mongers are usually selling something. They typically make exaggerated and biased claims. The SIAI and FHI do not seem to be significant exceptions to this - though their attempts to be scientific and rational certainly help.
These types of organisation form naturaly from those with the largest p(DOOM) estimates. That is not necessarily the best way to obtain an unbiased estimate. If you run into organistions who are trying to convince you that the end of the world is nigh - and you should donate to help them save it - you should at least be aware that this pattern is an ancient one with a dubious pedigree.
I am inclined to ask for references. As far as I understand it there is a real science Cryogenics - which goes out of its way to distance itself from its more questionable cousin (cryonics) - which has a confusingly-similar name. Much as psychology tries to distinguish itself from psychiatry. Is there much more than that going on here?
From what I understand, the professional learned society of cryobiologists has an official policy that bans any engagement with cryonics to its members under the pain of expulsion (which penalty would presumably have disastrous career implications). Therefore, cryobiologists are officially mandated to uphold this party line and condemn cryonics, if they are to speak on the subject at all. From what I've seen, cryonics people have repeatedly challenged this position with reasonable arguments, but they haven't received anything like satisfactory rebuttals that would justify the official position. (See more details in this post, whose author has spent considerable effort searching for such rebuttal.)
Now, for all I know, it may well be that the claims of cryonicists are complete bunk after all. The important point is that here we see a clear and unambiguous instance of the official academic mainstream upholding an official line that is impervious to rational argument, and attempts to challenge this official line elicit sneering and stonewalling rather than any valid response. One of my claims in this discussion is that this is far from being the only such example (although the official positions and the condemnations of dissenters are rarely spelled out so explicitly), and LW people familiar with this example should take it as a significant piece of evidence against trusting the academic mainstream consensus in general.
This seems to be the relevant bit:
It says they are not allowed to perform or promote freezing of "deceased persons" - citing concerns over ethical and scientific standards - and its own reputation. They probably want to avoid them and their members being associated with cryonics scandals and lawsuits.
As I said, I don't have a dog in this particular fight, and for all I know, the cryobiologists' rejection of cryonics might in fact be justified, for both reasons of science and pragmatist political considerations. However, the important point is that if you ask, in a polite, reasonable, and upfront manner, for a scientific assessment of cryonics and what exactly are the problems with it, it is not possible to get a full, honest, and scientifically sound answer, as demonstrated by that article to which I linked above. Contrast this with what happens if you ask, say, physicists what is wrong with some crackpot theory of physics -- they will spell out a detailed argument showing what exactly is wrong, and they will be able to answer any further questions you might have and fully clarify any confusion, as long as you're not being impervious to argument.
Regardless of any particular concern about cryonics, the conclusion to draw from this is that a strong mainstream academic consensus sometimes rests on a rock-solid foundation that can be readily examined if you just invest some effort, but sometimes this is not the case, at the very least because for some questions there is no way to even get a clear and detailed statement on what exactly this foundation is supposed to be. From this, it is reasonable to conclude that mainstream academic consensus should not be taken as conclusive evidence for anything -- and in turn, contrarian opinions should not be automatically discarded just because mainstream academics reject them -- unless you have some reliable criteria for evaluating how solid its foundation is in a particular area. The case of cryonics is relevant for my argument only insofar as this is a question where lots of LW people have run into a strong mainstream consensus for which it's impossible to get a solid justification, thus providing one concrete example that shouldn't be too controversial here.
I think most parties involved agree that cryonic revival is a bit of long shot. It is hard to say exactly how much of a long shot it is - since that depends on speculative far-future things like whether an advanced civilization will be sufficiently interested enough in us to revive us. Scientists can't say too much about that - except that there are quite a few unknown unknowns - and so to have wide confidence intervals.