Letters to the Editor
Jephary
Published Letters: 3 Editor's Choice: 2
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When Metaphor Takes Over Science
[Read the article: I, Nanobot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Goldstein's vision of a future (fast arriving) full of nanobiobots is fascinating stuff. Really, it is. It is too bad that his tone is so shrill and condescending. It doesn't help either that he has taken some fairly straightforward chemistry - antibodies on gold particles, molecullar imprinting, and other such examples - tarted them up in tabloid fashion, and then extrapolated to fantasy. If I wasn't so interested in what I think he was trying to say I would never have completed reading these five pages.
I should admit that this is my first taste of his work and from the biography below the article I sense that there was much before this. I agree with his message, if indeed it is what I think it is. The intervention on our biological nature by nanobiotech's designed devices could very well be an accceleration of what Freeman Dyson has called "post-Darwinian" evolution. There will be more to what we become than siomply teh swapping of genes. Of course we have already begun this journey through the history and sociology of humanity's varied cultures.
Are we ready for the nanobiotech future? Will it be our end? Yeah, we should probably not "try this too" as we have with every other technology that escapes our minds and hands, but I see no indication that we have every, or will ever, learn this lesson. From nuclear weapons to human cloning - once the technology is there it is only matter of time.
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Scut work versus Grand Vision
[Read the article: Imagine no more universal laws]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"....debates over development and globalization is between those who believe they know one answer that fits all questions, and those who believe every question deserves a different answer "
This is one of the most quotable insights into the workings of science (let alone economics) that I have seen in a long time. It is all the more vital to me at present becasue I am in the middle of writing a review article in my own discipline, and after reading more than 600 papers I have seen the full spectrum of explanatory power.
The individual expereince of insight (forget the hard science for a moment) is recounted in many different voices: in simple prose that is almost monk-like; succinct, wise, pithy at times, as well as in a voice not unlike the political; perambulatory, vague enough to be confused with complexity, and yet promising of future glory.
I have found that after reading enough articles within a major discipline category, that one tends to read through these trappings and in the end they usuaslly do no harm. But as Kapur pointed out in the article, when 'crony intellectualism' occurs, it can drag along several otherwsie fine scienntists ina fumbling waltz of writing that serves few. Worse, if this is witnessed by younger minds abd confused with real debate, then at least one thin strand of the future intellectual cloth is unwound.
Death by a thousand cuts.
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Repressed botanists
[Read the article: McCain flip-flops on abortion, buying Britney's hair and more]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes indeed the mint family was called the Labiateae for a long time. But if that has you blushing then you may not want to know of a little known member of the Fabiaceae family called Clitoria ternatea or Butterfly pea. (See http://www.plantoftheweek.org/week043.shtml for a beautiful picture.) It would appear that some intrepid field botanist had also done his in-house work as well when this was named.