Knock! Knock! It’s the Thought Police!

We’re puzzled.

Very puzzled in fact by the reaction to our item criticizing CiRN for advocating the use of ‘Nanomedicine’ as a physics reference book which has somehow led to accusations that we “vigorously — and irresponsibly — oppose the more advanced kinds of nanotechnology.” We have had similar reactions from the other side of the debate, praising us for separating real science from the views of “a bunch of head freezing weirdoes.”.

Both interpretations are fortunately wrong, as a trawl though the archives will show, and we are left scratching our heads at the apparent inability of many people to parse a simple English sentence when the phrase ‘molecular nanotechnology’ (MNT) appears in it. Let’s not confuse science with dogma.

The reaction from the MNT community has come in two forms, demands to point out any errors in the formulae used in ‘Nanosystems’ and further demands to explain what is wrong with using ‘Nanomedicine’ for checking formulae. What surprises us is that some senior and well known names in the community have taken such umbrage.

This echoes a common criticism we hear from the MNT community is that they have written to Richard Smalley / George Whitesides / Mark Welland about MNT and haven’t received a reply. It is not that these scientific luminaries are being rude, its just pressure of work. Most senior academics find that running a lab, applying for grants, supervising PhD. students, sitting on government comittees, dealing with the media and occasionally managing to get some research done is quite enough to juggle with. Debating the feasibility of diamondoid flying nanobots, or checking works such as ‘Nanomedicine’ for errors in basic formulae simply isn’t their job, while checking formulae in papers submitted to the peer reviewed scientific journals is. It’s a question of priorities.

A second claim that we often hear is that if the basic formulae in Nanosystems and Nanomedicine are correct then MNT must be taken seriously as science. Wrong. TNT Weekly is based on the same grammatical and linguistic rules as the works of Shakespeare, but that doesn’t make it great literature. Richard Feynman may have been one of the 20th century’s greatest physicists, but it doesn’t logically follow that everything that he utters must be taken as proven. Science works by observation, followed by the formulation and testing of a hypothesis. No one is immune to making mistakes, and the scientific system is designed to highlight, understand and correct those errors. By and large, the system works pretty well.

Only Popes and Messiahs claim to be infallible, and apart from Rael we haven’t seen too many of those sniffing around nanotech. The MNT community could better direct its efforts towards testing their hypotheses rather than claiming scientific credibility. It’s not about scientific elitism here, it’s simply the way science works.

So what is wrong with using ‘Nanosystems’ or ‘Nanomedicine’ for checking formulae? Simple, they are not physics text books. If you don’t believe us, then just pop along to your local university and ask the nearest physicist, chemist, professor of nanotechnology or librarian.

‘Nanosystems’ is a wonderful book if you want to know about molecular nanotechnology, but it was not designed as a physics or chemistry reference book. The same is true of ‘Nanomedicine;’ food for thought perhaps, but science it most certainly is not, no matter how many references it has.

Nanotechnology, in all its forms, is exciting potential technologists in a way we haven’t seen since the Apollo program, and works such as ‘Nanosystems’ has played a large part of this. Whether it is acceptable to the scientific establishment or not is immaterial. If children see images of nanobots and that sets them on the path to become a scientist or engineer rather than a lawyer then that is good for the whole of science. However, getting bogged down in the minutiae of whether MNT is feasible or not simply detracts from the real issue; if we have enough scientists and engineers looking at the field we’ll find out soon enough.

TNT Weekly has played part in maintaining a fair and balanced attitude to MNT, and will continue to do so. In the meantime, vilifying anyone who voices the mildest criticism of MNT is immature, unproductive and unscientific. This type of behavior has already alienated much of the scientific community, and turning their fire on some of MNTs closest supporters on the TNT Weekly team (a Brit, an American, a Spaniard, a Norwegian, a Finn and a Frenchman are all regular contributors) is as pointless as previous attempts to dismiss MNT out of hand, and will only propagate the schism.

Of course, you are free to disagree, at least with us.