Self-Replicating Molecular Machines - Once and For All

Christine Peterson who does a usually interesting blog for The Foresight Foundation challenged me to debate their scientists about my comment to wired.com To wit: "The concept of self-replicating molecular machines is science fiction. It's not a matter of waiting 30 years to develop them. They're never going to develop."

Never one to take the affirmative side of a negative debate proposition, I wisely demurred. After all, you can't prove a negative. I, together with my world-renowned Scientific Advisory Board made up of the 2005 Japan Prize recipient, 1998 Feynman Prize winner (by the way, that prize is awarded by Foresight), National Academy of Science, Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Engineering members, can't prove a negative.

Just because I can't prove you can't jump to the moon doesn't mean you can. Besides Nobel Prize winner R. Smalley and Foresight's godfather, E. Drexler, debated this at length in 2004 (google this), and to most all but Drexlerian diehards Smalley won.

Now "self-replicating", "self-reproducing", and "self-assembling" all mean different things and "never" is a long, long time, BUT the popular conception (popularized by Foresight's godfather himself in the mid 1980s) of so-called nanobots is of self-assembling, super-tiny machines, that build themselves up from individual atoms and molecules, then build others that build others etc. and then can be used to build anything! (a veritable factory that could build a pencil or glass on your desk).

Someday in the next few decades I expect we will see something arising from biology that looks a bit like something like something that exhibits a few of the traits one would expect to see in such a self-assembling molecular machine. (yes, I know that sentence meanders and implies a pretty flaky something or other) Some might argue that "Science Fiction" is too strong a term for the nanobots but I wouldn't spend any time arguing with them.

One day new laws of physics may be discovered. One day current laws may be better interpreted. One day, in some respected learned journal like Science or Nature or a dozen others a scientist might present scientific evidence that supports or proves the controversial concept. (Should any of these things happen, we'll be the 2nd to applaud - Christine, some at Foresight and a few scientists will be first).

BUT the best scientists respect only what can be done in verifiable conditions, not what can be conjectured, posited or shown in a simulation or with software modeling, and for the popular conception of self-replicating nano machines it hasn't been done yet. Until then, discussions of this sort are not scientific discussions, they are "religious" discussions about belief, and my parents taught me not to discuss religion.

I think what Foresight's new CEO, Scott Mize, has been doing there since he took over has been great. They have a really impressive lineup for their upcoming conference on October 22nd, and he has moved them from a focus on futurism and philosophy to a focus on nanotechnology that benefits mankind - a worthy cause for sure.

So much great science is being done and so much interesting and useful technology is emerging. At nanotechnology.com we don't have time to entertain debates about what might and might not be. To those who say to look at the examples of scientists who proved the naysayers wrong decades or centuries later, I say for every ten you can name (they are the "Exception") - there are a thousand where the naysayers were right! No need to advertise them, they are common as weeds - They are the "Rule". Just because one says something can't happen doesn't make one wrong. And just because one says something can happen doesn't make one right. The burden of proof is on the believer. It's harsh, but true - Until the proof, it is all in the believer's head, and that is our last word on the subject until that day arrives. If you disagree, we'll just have to agree to disagree.