[extropy-chat] British Royal Society Workshop Commentary

[Chris Phoenix]

Well, no, I didn't mean that the original unchanged description of
scientific theories had never been successfully criticized.  I meant
that the scientific theories we follow today have usually not had major
contradictions pointed out--if they had, we wouldn't still be following
them, would we?  Except as engineering approximations, of course.  And
there are some famous areas where two excellent theories contradict, and
other areas in ferment so that the time since last criticism is quite
short, and still others where the basic theory is solid but not all the
wrinkles and mechanisms are pinned down yet.

But that's beside the point.  Because now that you mention it, I'm not
aware of any need for any significant alteration of anything Drexler
wrote in Nanosystems.  Of course, Nanosystems is not his original word
on the subject.  There are several things that have been changed and
improved between Engines and Nanosystems--most importantly, in my
opinion, the shift from assemblers to nanofactories.  But aside from an
unimportant typo I found, and an obscure point Jeffrey Soreff told me
about (a slight overestimate in the probability of satisfying a surface
constraint, in Section 9.5.3), I don't know of any errors.  At all.  Not
even little ones.  At this point, I haven't even heard of any
predictions in Nanosystems that have been disproved.  

Hm... I guess if you count the fact that the planetary gear breaks at
incredibly high speeds, there might be two errors.  

Feel free to correct me, anyone.  If not...  Perhaps this is why those
who have actually studied Nanosystems have such high respect for Drexler
and are willing to go so far out on a limb to defend his work and
promote his theories.

Chris

Damien Broderick wrote:
> 
> Chris Phoenix sez:
> 
> > Never having been successfully criticized is an attribute common to most
> > (ideally all) current scientific theories.
> 
> Really? You must be using these words in a rather unusual way. Do you assert
> that George Gamow's version of the Big Bang persists unchanged, unchallenged
> and uncriticized? Or Guth's, for that matter? The original Crick&Watson
> model of DNA and its protein expression? Plate tectonics? Solar system
> formation? Quark theory unaltered since Gell-Mann's first salvo? Sure,
> *something* persists throughout all the challenges and responses, but it
> would unbelievable if Drexler's every word stood inviolate more than a
> decade later, which appears to be implied by the statement Hal and I are
> independently objecting to. (Maybe this is word-chopping, I'm not sure; but
> you can be certain that your antagonists will chop with a will if you give
> their blades an unnecessary opening.)
> 
> Damien Broderick

--
Chris Phoenix                                  cphoenix at CRNano.org
Director of Research
Center for Responsible Nanotechnology          http://CRNano.org