Foresight Debate with Scientific American
The curious omission of David Jones
"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw
my attention?"
"To the curious incident of the dog in the
night-time."
"The dog did nothing in the night-time."
"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock
Holmes.
Curiously absent from Scientific American's
defense is any mention of David Jones (a chemist and Nature
columnist) or of his criticisms. Their original story devoted
over a column to his "pointed
critique," the only published argument against
nanotechnology that they found worth citing. In this round, Scientific
American asserts that certain
other scientists "can muster technical arguments" to
defend this position (note Drexler's
response), but the name and arguments of their previous
champion have been quietly dropped.
If "Scientific American
stands by the article..." do they stand by the technical
validity of their quotes from
David Jones? Much of the story is quotes: if they don't stand
by the content of those quotes (not just the fact that someone
somewhere said them) then their claim to "stand by the
article" is hollow.
So, Scientific American is now faced with the
following options:
- Stand by the technical validity of the quotes from David
Jones, casting doubts on their ability to evaluate the
technical issues. (Jones'
comments were critiqued in detail, a fact that Scientific
American conveniently omitted).
- Disavow the quotes from David Jones, casting doubts on
the significance of their claim to "stand by"
the article.
- Don't mention David Jones and hope nobody notices.
This is just to let Scientific American know that
they can rule out the third option.....
Vanishing Nanosystems
The second notable omission is any reference to Nanosystems.
It was published in 1992 and no significant technical objections
have yet been found. Our
original observations about Nanosystems still hold.
Scientific American said that nothing has happened in
nanotechnology since 1986 when Engines
of Creation was published. This is a truly remarkable
claim -- the reader is invited to read http://nano.xerox.com/nano
and follow the links therein to judge the accuracy (or otherwise)
of Scientific American's statement.
Drexler comments on the utility
(or lack thereof) of "proof" in the current discussion.
Definitional confusion
The original story
conflated two very different definitions of nanotechnology,
thus creating a muddle. In their defense, they
claim neither Eric Drexler nor I objected to this.
It is usually not possible to determine that a term is used
consistently in a work without reviewing the entire work.
It's difficult to be accurate without asking people to read your
work before publishing it, but that's their policy and their
problem, not ours. Scientists pass around preprints and ask for
comments. This is a fine way to catch errors of exactly the type
that Scientific American committed.
I view the definitional muddle around the term
"nanotechnology" as sufficiently important to have
devoted several
paragraphs on my nanotechnology home page to the subject.
Evidently, Scientific American failed to grasp its
import.
Diversions
In their defense, Scientific
American argues that they included favorable statements
about nanotechnology. They do indeed compare Drexler favorably with
Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, but this repackaging of the
non-substantive "criticism" that "it's science
fiction" can hardly be viewed as favorable.
They also say "The
article contains extensive passages in which Drexler and other
proponents make their case for nanotechnology". This is
not accurate. There are passages where the logical consequences
of such a technology are explained, but these passages do not
address feasibility. The passages that address technical
feasibility are (a) rare and (b) systematically biased. Their
main attack on technical feasibility quoted David Jones for over a
column and then devoted two
sentences to the inaccurate claim that the only response was to
read Nanosystems. While reading Nanosystems is
good advice, the
specific rebuttal to Jones' comments was conveniently
omitted. If Jones' criticisms are valid Scientific American
should be proud to stand behind them, yet their letter makes no
mention of him. I assume they have decided his statements are
indefensible. If they remain silent on this subject, everyone
else will assume so as well.
Feynman
Scientific American tries to defend itself from the claim that
they misused the name of Feynman. Feynman's son disagrees
with them. He isn't alone. Readers are invited to read
Feynman's talk There's
plenty of room at the bottom and decide for themselves.
The comments on Feynman from
our original response to their story remain valid
Self replication
Scientific American argues that the existence of biological self
replicating systems does not, per se, prove that
artificial self replicating systems are feasible. This is
correct. And the existence of birds does not prove that a metal
airplane powered by gasoline can fly. But arguments against artificial
self replicating systems are almost invariably applicable to the
biological variety. Pointing out the existence of biological
self replicating systems is a compact and simple way of deflating
these arguments.
While Scientific American calls for
"proof" that molecular nanotechnology is
feasible (and incorrectly implies delivering such a proof is our
objective), they quite
explicitly argue that they don't, can't, and shouldn't have to
prove anything. We assume the reader will notice and
disregard this debater's trick. As
Drexler notes it is necessary to weigh the evidence for
alternative conclusions.
To understand why artificial self replicating systems are
feasible, it's necessary to
actually study the literature on the subject. Quite a few
designs have been proposed by quite a few authors (including
myself) that operate in quite a few environments. Interest in
such artificial systems is motivated by the observation that
there are many valuable things that biological systems appear
unable to make -- diamondoid structures being a prime example.
Conclusion
The Scientific American story advanced very few
arguments bearing on the technical feasibility of nanotechnology.
Those few arguments were systematically biased and distorted --
to such an extent that they no longer cite them in their own
defense. On this basis, Scientific
American argues that we should not pursue research in
molecular nanotechnology.
As the payoff is large, as there are no known valid technical
arguments against feasibility, and as there are many technical
arguments supporting the feasibility of nanotechnology, further
research should be pursued.
--Ralph Merkle
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