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June 11, 2004 – Bill McKibben made a name for himself among environmentalists more than 15 years ago with “The End of Nature,” a philosophical and prophetic look at global warming and how polluting machines alter our world and our relationship with it.
He returns to the theme of game-changing technologies in “Enough” by challenging the notion that technological progress is inevitable and beneficial.
He singles out genetic engineering, robotics and nanotechnology as advancements that threaten the essence of humanity. His knowledge and appreciation for the distinctions within genetics give credence to his warnings about genetic manipulation.
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But his portrayal of nanotechnology has no such subtleties. It is heavy on scary nanoboos and breathless Foresight forecasts, and light on the real science and struggles of today.
Nonetheless, it is an important book that eloquently questions the need to “improve” the human condition in societies that already live comfortably compared with most of the world. McKibben is a thoughtful advocate for technological moderation and its interplay with self and soul.
He begins with genetic engineering, taking pains to distinguish between somatic gene therapy, a technique that alters how cells function, and germline genetic engineering, irreversible embryonic tinkering that carries through from one generation to the next.
He describes a DNA arms race, with parents requesting the insertion of vanity genes — the double helix recipe for beauty or smartness or strength — into their progeny. While genetic engineering could also put an end to some heritable diseases, he concludes it is not worth the risks of becoming part person and part product.
He draws a parallel with nanotechnology, comparing current work with nanomaterials to somatic gene therapy. “But the holy grail of the nanotechnologists … the mechanical equivalent of germline engineering, is the so-called assembler,” he writes.
“With a programmable assembler … you really would be able to build anything. Probably the first thing you’d build would be more assemblers. The technology would go from being small but inert to being small but almost … alive, a self-replicating machine far more powerful than anything we’ve ever let loose.”
“Enough” readers will never know that a sizable segment of the nanoscience and nanotech community doubts the feasibility of assemblers. Many researchers dismiss the concept outright.
Germline engineering may be in its infancy, but it has been achieved in animals. Assemblers occupy the imagination only, yet McKibben implies that making them is just a matter of time unless we curb our technological impulses.
McKibben cites popularized nano visionaries such as K. Eric Drexler, Ray Kurzweil and gray goo’s Bill Joy. He footnotes Pat Mooney of the ETC Group and numerous news reports but includes only a few references to the governmental and research initiatives informing the here-and-now in nano.
The result is that the mainstream advocate appears to be this: “One nanotech enthusiast reports that he has ‘drawn up intricate plans for a system of nanobots that would make blood circulation obsolete. Tiny robot tankers containing oxygen, nutrients and wastes would replace all the functions of the circulatory system. The heart, that great clunky pump, would no longer beat.’ Asked if he would miss the ba-bump of a heart, the first sound that any of us hears, the nanodesigner said no: ‘The noise in my ears keeps me up when I try to go to sleep.'”
A footnote explains that the information came from a New York Times article dated July 16, 2002. The article summarized a Foresight Institute meeting in California. The “nanodesigner” was Chris Phoenix, “a software developer and would-be nanotechnologist” nowadays known as the co-director for the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology.
Phoenix, not mentioned by name in the book, is a pawn, maneuvered by McKibben to appear as a freak doubling as the norm in nanotech. That is unfair to Phoenix, and to the hundreds of biologists, bioengineers and other professionals who work on legitimate nanoscale medicines and therapies.
Why not cite researchers like Northwestern University’s Samuel Stupp, whose team is developing a nanofiber scaffold that promotes neural growth? The system is a step toward repairing damaged spinal cords. Or C Sixty Inc.?
The startup partnered with Merck & Co. in clinical studies on buckyballs (a.k.a. c-60). Its goal is to provide a drug for inhibiting or even preventing Alzheimer’s and other debilitating diseases.
Assemblers are a phantom, but nanofibers, buckyballs and other nanoscale therapies are not. They are the beginning of what could become increasingly sophisticated systems for medical care. They could prove to be life saving, life altering or life threatening — the kinds of developments that McKibben cautions need a watchful eye.
And unlike the nanobot specter, these technologies actually can be scrutinized.