From: Ramez Naam (mez@apexnano.com)
Date: Mon Nov 25 2002 - 00:17:46 MST
From: Avatar Polymorph [mailto:avatarpolymorph@hotmail.com]
> As far as I am aware, temporary genetic therapies have
> preceded alteration of child dna. Which comes first
> will probably be a social issue as much as
> anything. Probably fixing up diseases will be the thing
> initially sponsored.
Somatic cell gene therapy, the kind you hear about as a potential cure
for various diseases, is indeed being widely tested as a potential
medical technology. Unfortunately up until now successes have been
few and failures have been plentiful.
More importantly, embryonic genetic engineering can have far greater
effects than can gene therapy on adults. You can pre-engineer changes
to homeobox genes in fruit flies to cause them to have additional sets
of wings, for example. But if you tried to cause this to happen
through gene therapy on an adult fruit fly, you'd just as soon kill it
through the major changes happening in its body.
To get the same level of effect in an adult organism that you can have
on an embryo through genetic engineering, you need a technology more
like molecular nanotechnology. Somatic cell gene therapy is woefully
inadequate.
> Timeframe for a mature molecular nanotechnology? I have seen
> anyone arguing for anything after 2050 - at least not for
> a few years. I predict 2020. Many Singularitarians are
> more optimistic than that.
I presume you mean you /haven't/ seen anyone arguing for anything
after 2050... Personally, I find 2050 pretty optimistic, and so do
virtually all of the researchers I've talked to in the field. I have
seen no really compelling argument for why molecular manufacturing
will be possible in this century. Extraordinary claims, like
molecular manufacturing being possible by 2020, require extraordinary
evidence.
In particular, I have yet to see any sort of in-depth analysis of the
command and control problem, which I consider the hardest problem to
crack. In nature, which many use as the proof-of-principle of
Drexlerian nanotech, we see a great many chaotic and complex systems -
systems that it's difficult for us to manipulate in precise ways and
which have a tendency to get out of our control. Why should we expect
to have any greater ability to program assemblers to do our bidding?
cheers,
mez
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