The Drexler–Smalley debate on molecular nanotechnology was a public dispute between K. Eric Drexler, the originator of the conceptual basis of

molecular nanotechnology Molecular nanotechnology (MNT) is a technology based on the ability to build structures to complex, atomic specifications by means of mechanosynthesis. This is distinct from nanoscale materials. Based on Richard Feynman's vision of miniat ...

, and

Richard Smalley Richard Errett Smalley (June 6, 1943 – October 28, 2005) was an American chemist who was the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry, Physics, and Astronomy at Rice University. In 1996, along with Robert Curl, also a professor of ...

, a recipient of the 1996

Nobel prize in Chemistry The Nobel Prize in Chemistry () is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outst ...

for the discovery of the

nanomaterial Nanomaterials describe, in principle, chemical substances or materials of which a single unit is sized (in at least one dimension) between 1 and 100 nm (the usual definition of nanoscale). Nanomaterials research takes a materials science ...

buckminsterfullerene Buckminsterfullerene is a type of fullerene with the formula . It has a cage-like fused-ring structure ( truncated icosahedron) made of twenty hexagons and twelve pentagons, and resembles a football. Each of its 60 carbon atoms is bonded to i ...

. The dispute was about the feasibility of constructing

molecular assembler A molecular assembler, as defined by K. Eric Drexler, is a "proposed device able to guide chemical reactions by positioning reactive molecules with atomic precision". A molecular assembler is a molecular machine. Some biological molecules such a ...

s, which are

molecular machine Molecular machines are a class of molecules typically described as an assembly of a discrete number of molecular components intended to produce mechanical movements in response to specific stimuli, mimicking macromolecular devices such as switch ...

s that could robotically assemble molecular materials and devices by manipulating individual atoms or molecules. The concept of molecular assemblers was central to Drexler's conception of molecular nanotechnology, but Smalley argued that fundamental physical principles would prevent them from ever being possible. The two also traded accusations that the other's conception of nanotechnology was harmful to public perception of the field and threatened continued public support for nanotechnology research. The debate was carried out from 2001 to 2003 through published articles and

open letter An open letter is a Letter (message), letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally. Open letters usually take the form of a letter (mess ...

s. It began with a 2001 article by Smalley in ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

'', which was followed by a

rebuttal In law, rebuttal is a form of evidence that is presented to contradict or nullify other evidence that has been presented by an adverse party. By analogy the same term is used in politics and public affairs to refer to the informal process by w ...

published by Drexler and coworkers later that year, and two open letters by Drexler in early 2003. The debate was concluded in late 2003 in a "Point–Counterpoint" feature in ''

Chemical & Engineering News ''Chemical & Engineering News'' (''C&EN'') is a weekly news magazine published by the American Chemical Society (ACS), providing professional and technical news and analysis in the fields of chemistry and chemical engineering.history of nanotechnology due to the fame of its participants and its commentary on both the technical and social aspects of

nanotechnology Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...

. It has also been widely criticized for its adversarial tone, with Drexler accusing Smalley of publicly misrepresenting his work, and Smalley accusing Drexler of failing to understand basic science, causing commentators to go so far as to characterize the tone of the debate as similar to "a pissing match" and "reminiscent of ''

Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'') is an American Late night television in the United States, late-night live television, live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC. The ...

'' sketch".

The participants

K. Eric Drexler

K. Eric Drexler is generally considered to have written the first scholarly paper on the topic of nanotechnology, and was a key figure in popularizing these concepts through several publications and advocacy work. Trained as an engineer, Drexler was inspired by a then-obscure 1959 talk by physicist

Richard Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of t ...

called ''

There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom: An Invitation to Enter a New Field of Physics" was a lecture given by physicist Richard Feynman at the annual American Physical Society meeting at Caltech on December 29, 1959. Feynman considered the possibi ...

'', which posited that it should be physically possible to manipulate individual atoms using

top-down Top-down may refer to: Arts and entertainment * "Top Down", a 2007 song by Swizz Beatz * "Top Down", a song by Lil Yachty from ''Lil Boat 3'' * "Top Down", a song by Fifth Harmony from ''Reflection'' * "Topdown", a song by Channel Tres from the ...

engineering methodologies. Drexler was also inspired by recent advances in

molecular biology Molecular biology is a branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecule, molecular basis of biological activity in and between Cell (biology), cells, including biomolecule, biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactio ...

, such as

recombinant DNA Recombinant DNA (rDNA) molecules are DNA molecules formed by laboratory methods of genetic recombination (such as molecular cloning) that bring together genetic material from multiple sources, creating sequences that would not otherwise be fo ...

technology. In a 1981 publication in ''

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of Scie ...

'', considered to be the first journal article on nanotechnology, he argued that biological systems such as the

ribosome Ribosomes () are molecular machine, macromolecular machines, found within all cell (biology), cells, that perform Translation (biology), biological protein synthesis (messenger RNA translation). Ribosomes link amino acids together in the order s ...

were already capable of building molecules atom-by-atom, and that artificial machines with this capability could also be constructed. Drexler published two books on nanotechnology: '' Engines of Creation'' in 1986, which was intended for the public, and the technical work ''Nanosystems'' in 1992. He also co-founded the

Foresight Institute The Foresight Institute (Foresight) is a San Francisco-based research non-profit that promotes the development of nanotechnology and other emerging technologies, such as safe AGI, biotech and longevity. Foresight runs four cross-disciplinary p ...

, a public interest group devoted to increasing public awareness and information about molecular nanotechnology.Edwards, pp. 15–21, 27. Drexler's vision of nanotechnology, now called

, is based on the concept of the

, a

that would manufacture molecules and molecular devices atom-by-atom. Drexler drew a distinction between wet nanotechnology based on biological systems, and "second-generation" dry nanotechnology, which would be based on

mechanosynthesis Mechanosynthesis is a term for hypothetical chemical syntheses in which reaction outcomes are determined by the use of mechanical constraints to direct reactive molecules to specific molecular sites. There are presently no non-biological chemica ...

, positional control of molecules through principles more related to

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

. Drexler and his followers have focused almost exclusively on the latter form of molecular nanotechnology, but Drexler has stated that both are valid pathways to creating molecular machine systems.

Richard Smalley

Richard E. Smalley, a chemist at

Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...

, was best known as a co-discoverer of the C₆₀ form of carbon known as

in 1985, along with

Harry Kroto Sir Harold Walter Kroto (born Harold Walter Krotoschiner; 7 October 1939 – 30 April 2016) was an English chemist. He shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for their discovery of fullerenes. He was t ...

Robert Curl Robert Floyd Curl Jr. (August 23, 1933 – July 3, 2022) was an American chemist who was Pitzer–Schlumberger Professor of Natural Sciences and professor of chemistry at Rice University. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996 for ...

, James Heath, and Sean O'Brien. Buckminsterfullerene was the first to be discovered of the class of molecules known as

fullerenes A fullerene is an allotrope of carbon whose molecules consist of carbon atoms connected by single and double bonds so as to form a closed or partially closed mesh, with fused rings of five to six atoms. The molecules may have hollow sphere- ...

, which also includes

carbon nanotube A carbon nanotube (CNT) is a tube made of carbon with a diameter in the nanometre range ( nanoscale). They are one of the allotropes of carbon. Two broad classes of carbon nanotubes are recognized: * ''Single-walled carbon nanotubes'' (''S ...

s. The study and application of fullerenes forms a significant part of the fields of

nanomaterials Nanomaterials describe, in principle, chemical substances or materials of which a single unit is sized (in at least one dimension) between 1 and 100 nm (the usual definition of nanoscale). Nanomaterials research takes a materials science ...

and

nanoelectronics Nanoelectronics refers to the use of nanotechnology in electronic components. The term covers a diverse set of devices and materials, with the common characteristic that they are so small that inter-atomic interactions and quantum mechanical ...

, and Smalley, Kroto, and Curl were awarded the 1996

Nobel Prize in Chemistry The Nobel Prize in Chemistry () is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outst ...

for their discovery. Smalley had also taken a prominent

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a Group decision-making, decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to Problem solving, solve or address relevant and problematic social issues, guided by a conceptio ...

role on nanotechnology and was an outspoken advocate for using nanotechnology to develop solutions to the world's energy and health problems, for example, raising the possibility of using nanomaterials for efficient energy storage and transmission, and of developing nanomaterial-based drugs for

targeted drug delivery Targeted drug delivery, sometimes called smart drug delivery, is a method of delivering Pharmaceutical drug, medication to a patient in a manner that increases the Dose (biochemistry), concentration of the medication in some parts of the body relat ...

. Smalley was also active in commercializing his academic research into carbon nanotubes, having founded Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc., and serving on the scientific advisory board of two other biotechnology and nanotechnology

startups A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses tha ...

. Smalley died of

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia; pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and produce high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or '' ...

in October 2005, after the conclusion of his debate with Drexler.

The debate

Smalley's ''Scientific American'' article

Smalley wrote an article, "Of Chemistry, Love, and Nanobots", for the September 2001 issue of the

popular science Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written ...

magazine ''

'', which was a special issue on the topic of nanotechnology. Smalley opened by comparing a chemical reaction to an intricate dance of atoms: He referenced the idea of a

, a

nanorobot Nanoid robotics, or for short, nanorobotics or nanobotics, is an emerging technology field creating machines or robots, which are called nanorobots or simply nanobots, whose components are at or near the scale of a nanometer (10−9 meters). ...

capable of manipulating individual atoms to build a desired product, posing how long it would take such an assembler to produce a meaningful amount of material. He estimated that one assembler working alone would take millions of years to produce one

mole Mole (or Molé) may refer to: Animals * Mole (animal) or "true mole" * Golden mole, southern African mammals * Marsupial mole Marsupial moles, the Notoryctidae family, are two species of highly specialized marsupial mammals that are found i ...

of material, but

self-replicating Self-replication is any behavior of a dynamical system that yields construction of an identical or similar copy of itself. Cell (biology), Biological cells, given suitable environments, reproduce by cell division. During cell division, DNA repli ...

assemblers could, within a minute, produce a large enough ensemble of assemblers that would then be capable of producing a mole of product in a fraction of a millisecond. Smalley then discussed the fear that the nanorobots could mutate and reproduce indefinitely, causing a

grey goo Gray goo (also spelled as grey goo) is a hypothetical global catastrophic scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating machines consume all biomass (and perhaps also everything else) on Earth while buil ...

scenario, or, referring to

Bill Joy William Nelson Joy (born November 8, 1954) is an American computer engineer and venture capitalist. He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Scott McNealy, Vinod Khosla, and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as Chief Scientist and CTO ...

's previous article " Why the future doesn't need us", that the nanorobots could develop

swarm intelligence Swarm intelligence (SI) is the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial. The concept is employed in work on artificial intelligence. The expression was introduced by Gerardo Beni and Jing Wang in 198 ...

and become alive in some sense. Smalley then considered how realistic the concept of a self-replicating nanorobot was. He noted that in a chemical reaction, the

chemical bond A chemical bond is the association of atoms or ions to form molecules, crystals, and other structures. The bond may result from the electrostatic force between oppositely charged ions as in ionic bonds or through the sharing of electrons a ...

s are all interconnected and that the placement of each atom is sensitive to the position of all the other atoms in the vicinity. He then asserted that a molecular assembler would thus have to control many atoms simultaneously to work, and possess many manipulator arms. This led him to raise two objections to the concept of molecular assembler, which he called the "fat fingers problem" and the "sticky fingers problem": Smalley closed the article by returning to the analogy of chemistry as a dance of love, remarking that "you don't make a girl and a boy fall in love by pushing them together."

Drexler's response

Drexler responded by publishing a rebuttal later in 2001 through the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, which was co-authored with others including

Robert Freitas Robert A. Freitas Jr. (born 1952) is an American nanotechnologist. Early life and education Freitas was born in Camden, Maine. His father worked in agriculture, and his mother was a homemaker. Freitas married Nancy, his childhood sweetheart, in ...

, J. Storrs Hall, and

Ralph Merkle Ralph C. Merkle (born February 2, 1952) is an American computer scientist and mathematician. He is one of the inventors of public-key cryptography, the inventor of cryptographic hashing, and more recently a researcher and speaker on cryonics. M ...

. The authors first discussed the "fat fingers" argument by attacking Smalley's notion that a chemical reaction must involve five to fifteen atoms, stating that many reactions involve only two reactants, one of which can be immobilized and the other attached to a single "finger". They cited as evidence experimental and theoretical results indicating that using

scanning tunneling microscope A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a type of scanning probe microscope used for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, then at IBM Zürich, the Nobel Prize in ...

(STM) tips and related technologies could be used as a reactive structure for positional control and for interaction with surface-bound molecules. They also noted that atomically precise final products do not require precise control of all aspects of the chemical reaction. The authors noted that the "sticky fingers" problem is valid in some reactions, but argue that it would be fallacious to conclude that all reactions have this problem. The authors put forth the

as an example of a natural molecular machine; because the ribosome suffers from neither problem, they must not be fundamental, saying: The authors also questioned Smalley's figures for the replication time of nanomachines. Instead of Smalley's figure of 1 GHz for the atomic placement frequency, they point out that ''Nanosystems'' suggested a frequency of 1 MHz, a thousand times slower, and that at Smalley's higher frequency, diamondoid nanomachines would overheat and decompose in milliseconds. The authors called this a

straw man A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction. One who engages in this fallacy is said ...

argument, writing that "in a serious scientific discussion, a discrepancy of three orders of magnitude between what has been proposed in the literature and what is criticized suggests at best an inadequate grasp of the proposal." The authors closed by stating that the best way to find out whether molecular assemblers are feasible is through experimental and theoretical work, and that "there are many worthy molecular systems engineering challenges to overcome, but thus far, there has been no credible argument that these devices are infeasible." Drexler followed up with two open letters to Smalley in April and July 2003. The April letter began, "I have written this open letter to correct your public misrepresentation of my work." Drexler accused Smalley of continuing to dismiss his work by publicly describing molecular assemblers as requiring what Drexler now calls "Smalley fingers", which he stated to be unlike the enzyme-like systems he had actually proposed. He asserted: Drexler compared the nanotechnology debate's importance to that of discussions of spaceflight before

Sputnik Sputnik 1 (, , ''Satellite 1''), sometimes referred to as simply Sputnik, was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space progra ...

or to theoretical work on

nuclear chemistry Nuclear chemistry is the sub-field of chemistry dealing with radioactivity, nuclear processes, and transformations in the nuclei of atoms, such as nuclear transmutation and nuclear properties. It is the chemistry of radioactive elements such as t ...

before the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the ...

. He disputed Smalley's arguments that the fear of a grey goo scenario would hinder continued funding of nanotechnology research, arguing that the potential for long-term risks made research even more important. His conclusion stated, "Your misdirected arguments have needlessly confused public discussion of genuine long-term security concerns." The July 2003 letter referenced a note from Smalley promising to respond, which had yet gone unfulfilled. Drexler mentions inconsistencies in Smalley's previous public statements on atom-by-atom construction, and ended by stating "I would not ordinarily raise an issue so persistently, but the question of what nanotechnology can ultimately achieve is perhaps the most fundamental issue in the field today—it shapes basic objectives and expectations—and your words have been remarkably effective in changing how this issue is perceived."

Exchange of letters in ''Chemical & Engineering News''

The debate was concluded in a "Point–Counterpoint" feature that was the 1 December 2003 cover story of ''

Chemical & Engineering News ''Chemical & Engineering News'' (''C&EN'') is a weekly news magazine published by the American Chemical Society (ACS), providing professional and technical news and analysis in the fields of chemistry and chemical engineering.American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

. The feature first reproduced Drexler's April 2003 open letter to Smalley. Smalley's response began by apologizing for any offense his September 2001 article had caused, and stating that Drexler's book, ''Engines of Creation,'' had triggered Smalley's interest in nanotechnology. He agreed that "Smalley fingers" could not work, and then asserted that the same reasons that would preclude atomic control of reactions would also preclude the manipulation of larger building blocks, since each molecule would have multiple atoms that would need to be controlled. He then agreed that something like an enzyme or ribosome would be capable of precise chemistry, but asked how the nanorobot would be able to obtain, control, and repair such an enzyme, and noted the incompatibility of many reactions with water-based biological systems, stating that "biology is wonderous in the vast diversity of what it can build, but it can't make a crystal of silicon, or steel, or copper, or aluminum, or titanium, or virtually any of the key materials on which modern technology is built." Smalley asked what kind of "nonaqueous enzymelike chemistry" Drexler would envision for his molecular assemblers to operate upon, calling this "a vast area of chemistry that has eluded us for centuries." Drexler's counterresponse began by returning to Feynman's 1959 talk, stating that "although inspired by biology... Feynman's vision of nanotechnology is fundamentally mechanical, not biological." He characterized the challenges as being those of

systems engineering Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their Enterprise life cycle, life cycles. At its core, systems engineering uti ...

rather than solely chemistry, and referred Smalley to ''Nanosystems'', with its vision of mechanical control of chemical reactions with no enzymes and no reliance on solvents or thermal motion. He stated: Drexler reiterated that these molecular assemblers would require no impossible fingers, and would augment solution-phase chemistry to produce

macroscopic The macroscopic scale is the length scale on which objects or phenomena are large enough to be visible with the naked eye, without magnifying optical instruments. It is the opposite of microscopic. Overview When applied to physical phenome ...

products with precise arrangements of chemical building blocks, using solution-phase molecular assemblers to bootstrap the construction of more sophisticated assemblers. He concluded by writing: Smalley began his concluding letter: Smalley stated his belief that most reactions using mechanosynthesis would simply give the wrong product, and that very few reactions and target molecules would likely be compatible with such an approach. He asserted that any robotic assembler arm would need an enzyme-like tool at its end, such would require a liquid medium. As all known enzymes use water as their medium, the range of products must be limited to the "meat and bone of biology." He accused Drexler of creating "a pretend world where atoms go where you want because your computer program directs them to go there." Lastly, Smalley recounted his recent experience reading essays written by middle and high school students after an outreach visit, saying that nearly half of them thought that self-replicating nanorobots were possible and that most were worried about the results of them spreading across the world. Smalley called this a deeply troubling bedside story that he did his best to allay. Smalley concluded his letter:

Critical response

Tone

The debate has been widely criticized for its adversarial tone. David Berube in ''Nano-Hype: The Truth Behind the Nanotechnology Buzz'' characterized it as "two people talking over each other... not conducive to reasonable rebuttal," and quoted nanotechnology blogger and journalist Howard Lovy as saying "the tenor of the debate is about personal pride, reputation, and a place in the pantheon." Zyvex founder James von Ehr remarked that "Eric rexlerdidn't do himself any favors by getting into a pissing match with a Nobel-prize winner." An article in ''The New York Times'' called the debate "reminiscent of that old ''

'' sketch...

ith The Ith () is a ridge in Germany's Central Uplands which is up to 439 m high. It lies about 40 km southwest of Hanover and, at 22 kilometers, is the longest line of crags in North Germany. Geography Location The Ith is i ...

Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin tossing insults at each other while ostensibly debating a serious political issue," referring to a version of the long-running

Weekend Update ''Weekend Update'' is a ''Saturday Night Live'' sketch and satirical news program that comments on and parodies current events. It is the show's longest-running recurring sketch, having been on since the show's first broadcast and been featu ...

segment.

Technical commentary

The debate has received technical criticism as well. Steven A. Edwards in ''The Nanotech Pioneers'' noted that the ambiguity of the specifications and even definition of a molecular assembler makes an evaluation of the argument difficult and minimizes its scientific implications. He remarked that "nowhere in it does ''Nanosystems'' contain a blueprint for a molecular assembler... We are told, for instance, that a manipulator arm would involve 4,000,000 atoms, but we are not told which atoms, or how they would be put together." He concludes that "the debate over mechanosynthesis so far is huge to the participants, but mainly an entertaining academic diversion to most nanotechnologists." On the other hand,

futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futures studies or futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities ...

Ray Kurzweil Raymond Kurzweil ( ; born February 12, 1948) is an American computer scientist, author, entrepreneur, futurist, and inventor. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), speech synthesis, text-to-speech synthesis, spee ...

in his book ''

The Singularity Is Near ''The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology'' is a 2005 non-fiction book about artificial intelligence and the future of humanity by inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil. A sequel book, '' The Singularity Is Nearer'', was released on J ...

'' declared Drexler as the winner of the debate, reiterating the view that Smalley distorted Drexler's ideas and calling Smalley's responses "short on specific citations and current research and long on imprecise metaphors" and asserting that "Smalley is ignoring the past decade of research on alternative means of positioning molecular fragments using precisely guided molecular reactions... hich havebeen extensively studied." He quoted experimental results on enzyme function in nonaqueous solutions, and pointed out that modern non-biological technology such as airplanes and computers have exceeded the capabilities of natural biological systems. He also noted that "earlier critics also expressed skepticism that either worldwide communication networks or software viruses that would spread across them were feasible... ut todaywe are obtaining far more gain than harm from this latest example of intertwined promise and peril."

Commentary on public perception of nanotechnology

The debate's focus on the public perception of nanotechnology has also received commentary. Political blogger

Glenn Reynolds Glenn Harlan Reynolds (born August 27, 1960) is an American legal scholar who is the Beauchamp Brogan Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee College of Law. He is known for his American politics blog, ''Instapundit''. Ins ...

stated that "the business community is afraid that advanced nanotechnology just seems too, well, spooky—and worse, that discussions of potentially spooky implications will lead to public fears that might get into the way of bringing products to market."Berube, p. 58.

Lawrence Lessig Lester Lawrence "Larry" Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American legal scholar and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvar ...

criticized the scientific establishment, represented by Smalley, for arguing that "if so-called dangerous nanotech can be relegated to summer sci-fi movies and forgotten after Labor Day, then serious work can continue, supported by billion-dollar funding and uninhibited by the idiocy that buries, for example, stem cell research." Kurzweil wrote that Smalley's approach to reassuring the public would backfire because it denied both the benefits and risks of molecular nanotechnology.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Drexler-Smalley debate on molecular nanotechnology History of technology Nanotechnology publications Scientific debates