[extropy-chat] Reputation was Education monopolies (2)

[Keith Henson]

At 04:08 PM 1/28/2007 -0500, you wrote:


>On 1/27/07, Keith Henson <<mailto:hkhenson at rogers.com>hkhenson at rogers.com> 
>wrote:
>>I am amused.
>
>Happy to  provide entertainment, please leave a few $ in the cup by the 
>door as you leave.
>
>>I don't know about Merkle and Freitas, but _one_ of the reasons Drexler's
>>writing has few flaws is that he had a bunch of editors and fact
>>checkers.  (My wife was among them for _Nanosystems_)
>
>Interesting.  I would be curious to know whether the flaws were numerical, 
>logical, or referential.

I imagine all three, but my wife was involved in checking the references.

>And I agree with your assertion.  Being wise enough to have internal 
>review and incorporate worthwhile comments is a productive strategy.  I 
>cannot help however being struck by the fact of how accurate Nanosystems 
>was/is given that it was written 15+ years ago.  So hats off to the 
>reviewers (however unknown).

Nanosystems was a rewrite of Drexler's PhD thesis from MIT.  People such as 
Marvin Minsky were on his committee.  As to the reviewers, look in the 
acknowledgements.  There are more than a page of them listed.  I know about 
half of them.

>>Of course being humble enough to know you are not perfect and *need* others
>>to look at your work before publication is in itself a darn good reason for
>>high reputation.
>
>Agreed.  When one is knee deep in a problem (as I currently am 
>with  mechanisms of aging) it  is useful to have external inputs.

I don't know who you have as reviewers of your work, but I know that if I 
were in that area I would want de Grey.

As a suggestion, most rodents live about two years.  Naked mole rats live 
20 or more.  It would be very interesting to compare the genome of rats, 
mice and mole rats for clues as to why mole rats live so long.

Keith