Josh, I can find so much fault with your argument its difficult to know where to start.

You talk of scientists profiting from an association with Drexler’s vision. Its my understanding that most scientists have been at pains to dismiss his claims. And while many have done so summarily, without taking the time to explain their position either to the public or Drexler’s supporters, the person you now accuse of profiting from Drexler’s ideas, Richard Jones, is one of the few scientists who has tried to engage with the Drexler camp and examine the scientific issues on an objective basis.

I can’t see how you might argue, either, that Richard Jones was instrumental in appropriating the word Nanotechnology from its Drexlerian usage. The IOP journal Nanotechnology has been publishing research articles on nanoscale science and engineering since 1990. Indeed Drexler himself wrote an article for it in 1991. The word Nanotechnology clearly had a broad meaning within the scientific community many years before Jones wrote his book. This decade you talk of, where nanotechnology had no other meaning, never happened.

As far as I can tell, your grievance against Richard Jones is entirely unjustified. And why anyone charged with Advancing Beneficial Nanotechnology would want to draw comparisons between the academic nanoscience community and a murderous child is completely beyond me. If this is your “integrated vision of how nanotech interacts with other advanced fields” then it looks like the Foresight Institute is in for some tough times ahead.

Let’s be accurate about what insults are being applied to who here. In my piece, it’s the promoters of nano-business – in the consultancies and trade associations -
that nanoscientists might call “hucksters”.

As to who is the father of nanotechnology, I think that most nanoscientists are in agreement with Drexler that this title belongs to Richard Feynman. Whether either are right about that is a different matter.

Words’ meanings change. Foresight should embrace the future, not fight it.

Advocates of Drexler’s ideas have used many terms over the years to try to distinguish his original vision from more recent research. Molecular Manufacturing, Advanced Nanotechnology, Molecular Nanotechnology, Mechanosynthesis… But until the concept moves off the drawing board, its only a matter of time before each of these vague terms becomes attached to something else more real, something that exists.

Those who would have us revere the word Nanotechnology, do a great injustice to the originality of Drexler’s ideas. Surely if they are a valuable contribution to mankind then they can compete with all the other good ideas out there and win on their own merits. If you think that the only hope of gaining attention for Drexler’s ideas is stopping others from using the term Nanotechnology then doesn’t that put you on the same intellectual level as a domain name squatter?

Perhaps the best way forward is simply to refer to Eric Drexler’s ideas as Drexlerian Nanotechnology. That would avoid all confusion and, if and when it ever gets built, give the guy the full credit he deserves.