X-Message-Number: 30782
From: Mark Plus <>
Subject: Re: Great Mambo Disappointments
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 21:00:26 -0700

In Cryonet #30776, David Brandt-Erichsen writes:


>I don't think we are chasing a technological mirage -- it's just that (as 
Arthur C. Clarke pointed out) people continuously overestimate near-term 
technological advances and underestimate long-term advances. 


And, of course, progress towards molecular nanotechnology has the R-word in its 
way:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/uow-rca021108.php

"Religion colors Americans' views of nanotechnology
MADISON -- Is nanotechnology morally acceptable?


"For a significant percentage of Americans, the answer is no, according to a 
recent survey of Americans' attitudes about the science of the very small.


"Addressing scientists here today (Feb. 15, 2008) at the annual meeting of the 
American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dietram Scheufele, a 
University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of life sciences communication, 
presented new survey results that show religion exerts far more influence on 
public views of technology in the United States than in Europe.


"'Our data show a much lower percentage of people who agree that nanotechnology 
is morally acceptable in the U.S. than in Europe,' says Scheufele, an expert on 
public opinion and science and technology."


We've also seen impediments in the way of radical life extension, genetic 
engineering and stem cell engineering coming from certain schools of religious 
thought, though as Ronald Bailey points out in his book "Liberation Biology," 
Jewish theologians and rabbis often express a high level of support for healthy 
superlongevity. The value they place on staying alive for a really long time has
exasperated the Jewish bioethicist Leon Kass, who has had to turn to mostly 
Catholic bioethicists to support his pro-death beliefs.


The opposition to bio-engineering seems to derive from beliefs about origins. 
Information technology has faced little or no opposition from theists compared 
with bio-engineering because no theist ever though of attributing to his deity 
the ability to create a computer. Therefore it doesn't look like the IT engineer
"plays god." (Ironically, creationists who have rebranded their beliefs as 
"Intelligent Design" regularly identify biological structures as the product of 
some mysterious entity's act of engineering.) 



"Around 2010 the world will be at a new orbit in history. . .  Life expectancy 
will be indefinite. Disease and disability will nonexist. Death wll be rare and 
accidental -- but not permanent. We will continuously jettison our obsolescence 
and grow younger." F.M. Esfandiary, "Up-Wing Priorities" (1981).

Mark Plus

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