[extropy-chat] Wired article on Drexler

[Hal Finney]

Extropians -

Glenn Reynolds' InstaPundit blog has a brief mention this morning
of the Wired article on Drexler.  http://www.instapundit.com
He writes:

   NANO-WARS: Ed Regis has an article in Wired on the nanotechnology
   industry's rather unfair treatment of Eric Drexler. It's also worth
   reading this[1] for more background.

   UPDATE: Daniel Moore[2] thinks that the article is too favorable to
   Drexler, while I actually think it underplays the intensity and
   ill-advisedness of the industry's efforts to shape the debate.

and links to 

[1] http://www.techcentralstation.com/052604D.html which is an earlier
article by Reynolds on the possibility that the NanoBusiness Alliance
may be becoming less hostile to Drexlerian ideas

[2] http://dfmoore.mu.nu/archives/2004/10/the_nanotech_debate_continues.php
Moore is a 3rd year grad student doing nanotech research at Georgia
Tech.

Moore's article reflects what I am beginning to see as a consensus in
the nanotech research world regarding the Drexler-Smalley debate:

   First, the article brings up the now famous (in nanotech circles)
   exchange between Drexler and Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley that
   took place in the pages of Chemical and Engineering News (located
   here[3]) The article in Wired glosses over Smalley's disagreements
   with Drexler, but I remember reading the letters when they first came
   out. Everyone in my group read them. Our general consensus was that
   Smalley cleaned Drexler's clock. Smalley brought up some legitimate
   questions over the science aspect of making and using nanoassemblers
   that Drexler answered only with some variant of "you shouldn't say
   somethings impossible in science because you never know." Science
   and technology do not get advanced with such answers.

[3] http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/8148/print/8148counterpoint.html
is the text of the letters which constituted the debate.

"Smalley cleaned Drexler's clock."  And yet, the reviews from nanotech
proponents, such as Chris Phoenix's review at
<http://www.crnano.org/Debate.htm>, give entirely the opposite impression.
What can we conclude from this apparently contradiction?

In a way, there is no contradiction.  Each side would agree that we don't
know if assemblers can work.  Moore is unsatisfied and characterizes
Drexler's claim as "you shouldn't say something's impossible in science
because you never know."  Chris is satisfied that "If Smalley's goal is
to demonstrate that machine-phase chemistry is fundamentally flawed, he
has not been effective".

It's the same old burden-of-proof game that I've complained about before.
As long as nanotech proponents present the issue as a requirement for
science to prove that nanotech is impossible, they can't lose their
argument, but they can't make progress either.  As Moore writes,
"Science and technology do not get advanced with such answers."

Hal