Nanophobia

Does matter become more toxic when it's shrunk? Some European greens seem to think so, reports Noah Shachtman in Wired, and would "like to see a moratorium on the development of nanoparticles until there are clear and agreed-upon processes for assuring safety, and that take into (account) nanotechnology's impact on society, democracy, culture and the environment."

Says the head of Northwestern U's Institute for Nanotechnology, "Saying you want to ban nanotechnology is like saying 'I want to ban all science.'" Actually, some greens in Europe -- and here -- may see it that way, too.

Comments

[Ian]

There's no problem having a dialog- in fact, the very suggestion that a particular type of nanoparticle-related process would go into commercialized production without extensive testing is absurd.

[Sir Real]

More confusing the message with the messenger-

A moratorium is not a ban- it is implicitly time limited. Of course, banning research is absurd, but a case can be made for limiting application (if we need more time to study global warming before taking action, why not study nano's potential impact before takign action)

The green's opposition to nanotechnology shouldn't be viewed through the prism of toxic waste, because it's much more similair to the debate on biotechnology for a number of reasons.
1st, most greens subscribe to a rather robust version of the cautionary principle- learn as much about the consequences of your intended actions as possible before you act. Considering our vanishingly small knowledge of nanotechnology, this seems like common sense.

Second, nanotech has the capacity for self replication. Aside from the (tremendous) obstacles in the way of that achievement, when it happens, the impact on society will be literally revolutionary. Theoretically robust, self replication nanotechnology has a destructive capacity beyond our wildest dreams. In apocalyptic circles, it's the castalyst for the "gray Ooze" scenario.

As a resident of planet earth, I'm not scared of nanotechnology reducing the world to a puddle anytime soon. However, I fail to see how more information could possibly be a bad thing. If there had been processes for "assuring safety, and that take into (account) KUDZU's impact on society, democracy, culture and the environment."-
I would not now be watching the countryside I love being devoured, because a bunch of scientists thought they knew best.

[thoreau]

As a physics grad student at a university with a lot of nanotech research, I'm not aware of much in the way of self-replicating nanotech. That seems to be (thus far) more of a dream than a reality.

Nanoparticles could indeed cause considerable harm, for much the same reason that any other powder can cause lung damage if inhaled. The damage could be even worse than most powders, but it's hard to say. In any case, the danger is of a very run-of-the-mill variety, the sort of thing that some animal tests and epidemiology studies should be able to figure out.

Some common-sense precautions on handling of nanoparticles should suffice. Although they're quite tiny and thus can in principle escape containers more easily than some powders, in practice nanoparticles often agglomerate unless they're dispersed in a liquid (this was the case for the nano-particles I worked with at one point) or they're bound to surfaces and hence completely harmless. Moreover, even if they can escape a container more easily, the RATE at which they escape a container would still be quite small in most cases, and it would most likely occur if a bottle lid was poorly secured before the container was shaken.

All in all, not a big deal. However, we scientists would do well to point out these common-sense facts rather than talking about self-replicating nanorobots that can enter the bloodstream to repair damaged tissue. The "nanobots" are still just a dream.

[Jough]

These nanophobiacs are complete morons. Everyone knows picotechnology is where the real danger lies. Megatech is pretty frightening as well, but on a completely different level.

Really though, we now know who the sort of people are who fall for things like the Liberian bank scams...

[Sage]

"All those dirty atoms--they're all over me!! Help!!"

[Todd Fletcher]

"I am not sure why some of you think it's foolish to want to have a dialog on the consequences of a new technology before it becomes commonplace and entrenched."

I don't think there is an objection to a dialog. The objection is to the use of the precautionary principle as a trick to prevent the development of technologies the greens don't like.

Since it's famously impossible to know in advance the ramifications of a new technology, making it's deployment dependent on an unrealistic degree of fore-knowledge is an effective way to prevent technologies you don't like from ever getting out of the lab.

So when the greens do this, it's an impediment to the kind of dialog you rightly think we need.

[erf]

Nice comments Sir Real. Most people here seem to think that only scientists/technologists should have a say in the progress of science and technology.

[fredH]

Good post, Thoreau. An injection of actual information instead of a lot of hot air. As someone who has been involved in the commercialization of numerous chemicals and polymers, I can tell you folks that regulatory mechanisms to deal with this "problem" are already in place. No new substances can be commercially manufactured in or imported into the US without being approved by the EPA under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). This involves loads of paperwork and extensive toxicity testing. Europe has a similar system called EINECS. So does every other country with the technological capacity to manufacture such materials.

[Sean Kirby]

As a matter of fact, let's never do anything before we fully understand the way it might effect democracy and culture.

That's progress at Euro-speed.

[Plutarck]

There's just one teensy little problem with all the apocolyptic visions of nanotechnology and gray goo - the laws of thermodynamics.

We already have itty bity self-replicating structures - they're called bacteria. They're everywhere, in everything, and are practically themselves "gray goo" - and they make our very existance on earth possible. Yet they still cannot undermine those pesky laws of thermodynamics, such that you just don't see mountains up and dissappearing, or deserts turned to paradises, or paradises turned to deserts, or the world covered in gray goo just because of them - do you?

That's because no matter how small something is, doing things like that requires work. And useful work like this, what with that pesky concept of entropy, requires massive amounts of energy - far more than even that which would be produced by nuclear reactions, and it is just in general very hard to get energy available to perform useful work.

Effectively, to get anything like gray goo you would have to...well, from every bit of knowledge we have it just isn't feasible due to the fundamental laws of physics. You just can't get enough energy to power the massive amounts of work to be done, and the nature of entropy makes it such that as you are performing such work you are neccessarily undoing some of the other stuff you've been doing. The amount of communication and organization required to avoid such massive inefficiency requires exceeding amounts of complexity, and further requires even MORE energy.

The fact is, nanotechnological revolution and apocolypse are complete and utter fantasies, just as with ever so many of the biological ones, and they stem, knowledge-wise, from a simple lack of grasp of the fundamentals.

The other key fact is that, even if it were actually possible, it is _not any time soon_ - yet they are already calling for it to be banned. I state that if you want to restrict someone's freedom, you must have a very good, compelling reason to do so - and Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about something merely because it is different, new, technological, and one's own ignorance, is not reasonable or compelling.

[Sean]

Green=Luddite. If they were around during an ice age, they would have opposed the earth warming up. They should just call themselves neo-Amish and get it over with.

[david f]

dontcha just love how those eurolefties (actually, thats redundant) introduce "democracy" whenever they can... then, throw in society (social justice -- total redistribution and positive rights), the environment (back to sean's luddite point), cutlure (the slam against the us for it's active, deliberate cultural imperalism -- parlez vous francais? ), and you're ready to go!

we'll see how they get globalization involved, too.

cheers,
drf

[erf]

I am not sure why some of you think it's foolish to want to have a dialog on the consequences of a new technology before it becomes commonplace and entrenched.

[fyodor]

Worrying about nanotechnology's impact on society, democracy and culture is silly of course. The environmental question doesn't seem to me to be entirely out of line since lighter objects can get blown around and perhaps absorbed more easily. But since the Greens are obviously so biased on these types of matters, I'm sure not going to worry about it just because they are.

[Plutarck]

Oh, btw - that's not to say nanotechnology won't one day be exceedingly useful and greatly change and improve life (computing, biotechnology, and "microlite construction", and processing pollution come to mind as great uses) - but right now they really are nothing but far off pipe dreams. As far as I'm aware they've yet to build even a reliable on/off circuit, which is the basis for even the most base of computing tasks.

As John Brignell points out on his NumberWatch web site ( http://www.numberwatch.co.uk ), "As for the science fiction scenario of nano-engineered robots taking over the earth, that is for the fairies and the heir to the throne. Micro-engineering also happens to be a field in which your bending author has dabbled. Its achievements are negligible, a few trivial demonstrations. Nano-technology, a thousand time smaller and a billion times more difficult, has produced little more than the letters IBM written in atoms and a few tasty research grant applications. Even traditional macro-engineering is far from creating a self reproducing machine, even if it wanted to."

That commentary: http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/2003%20June.htm under "More Gray Goo"

[Anonymous]

You wanna be blown away by some amazing nanotechnology? Have a look at nature's Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid.

[Thompson Aimee]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
IP: 62.213.67.122
URL: http://www.pills-for-penis.com
DATE: 01/25/2004 02:03:46
'Love -- a grave mental disease.' Plato