X-Message-Number: 32821 From: Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2010 12:27:18 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Smalley & perspective Content-Language: en The invocation of Smalley's name to impugn Drexlerian nano is mildly interesting and ironic, partly because Smalley himself has been called the father of nanotechnology. Here's a little guilt by association, taken from Wiki, suggesting that Smalley was a creationist and Christian fundamentalist: "The burden of proof is on those who don't believe that "'Genesis' was right, and there was a creation, and that Creator is still involved. We are the only species that can destroy the Earth or take care of it and nurture all that live on this very special planet. I'm urging you to look on these things. For whatever reason, this planet was built specifically for us. Working on this planet is an absolute moral code. ... Let's go out and do what we were put on Earth to do." Well, we all have our flaws, and Smalley, who was a Nobelist in chemistry, can be forgiven his at least in some contexts, but we need a reminder that he could err. We also may need a reminder that in any great scientific controversy, some of the leading experts have to be wrong, else there wouldn't be a controversy. The controversies regarding quantum theory are more than a century old and going strong. What emerges is the simple fact that Drexlerian nanotech is a huge and inherently difficult field with relatively tiny resources devoted to it for a relatively short time. I take no stock in the singularity, so I don't see any sudden early miracles, but I do see eventual success as inevitable, if civilization endures. I am also puzzled by those who say we should repudiate Drexlerian nanotech but retain our confidence in the eventual success of cryonics. That success will depend in part on nanotech, by one name or another. Robert Ettinger Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32821