The shock news of the day was an opinion piece in ‘Nanotechnology‘ by Eric Drexler suggesting that chemistry sets can be safe when used under the supervision of a responsible adult. – At least that is how it appeared to us after we had the article translated into English. We had a quick trawl around and made a few phone calls.
The Guardian has a different view, with the headline “Civilisation safe as nanobot threat fades Whoopee!” and the BBC has “Nanotech guru turns back on goo” before launching off into the dangers of nanotech and illustrating the piece with a couple of stock shock nanotech images.
Meanwhile the scientific community has been treating this as an admission of fundamental flaws in the original vision of molecular nanotechnology making the whole thesis untenable. The song coming out of the Oxbridge bars is “One-Nil to the scientific establishment.”
At the green end of the political spectrum, the paper is being viewed as an attempt to counter recent criticism by environmental groups, somewhat akin to Monsanto scientists discovering that GMOs are good for you, or British agriculture minister John Selwyn Gummer force-feeding his daughter a hamburger at the height of the BSE scare. But its all OK, because “All risk of accidental runaway replication can be avoided.”
So, is molecular nanotechnology unfeasable or perfectly safe? To be honest afer reading this we are none the wiser.