TNT Weekly and this TNT Log have a relatively long tradition (in the world of nanotechnology) of poking fun at people who clearly don’t know what they’re talking about.
The operative word here is “fun”. When we take aim at some particularly egregious piece of information, we enjoy taking the author to task.
We’re not sure it has ever driven any business our way, but in any case, that’s not been the goal in these pieces.
That’s why we were puzzled that we got dragged into a little spat over on the Soft Machine Blog, which we enjoy very much by the way.
Apparently, Nathan Tinker was the author of a a piece on “Nanosavy Journalism” in which quantum effects are mentioned together with nanotechnology in such a way that Richard Jones felt it time to clear up any misconceptions about the relationship between the two.
Well, that apparently wasn’t going to stand with the author of the piece, Nathan Tinker. Fair enough, fight for your right, whatever that may be. But how did we get pulled into it with this little morsel:
“As a former academic myself, I certainly understand the tendency to ridicule and brush off the encroachment of non-specialists upon ones area of expertise. Others do it for more mundane reasons: TNTLog ridicules others in order to drive business their way.”
Oh well, some people don’t like to be challenged on things they admitedly are not specialists in. But just for the record, we do it for the fun of it, and the perhaps vain hope that someone will pay attention to those people who do know what they’re talking about.