FreitasR. A. J., “Exploratory Design in Medical Nanotechnology: A Mechanical Artificial Red Cell,”Artificial Cells, Blood Substitutes, and Biotechnology [formerly: Artificial Cells, Blood Substitutes, and Immobil. Biotech]26, no. 4 (1998): 411–30. This paper is based on an earlier version, which was first submitted for publication in 1996. As the more extended original paper has afterwards been revised and prepared for online-access, the following citations refer to the online publication from 1996: FreitasR. A. J., “Exploratory Design in Medical Nanotechnology: A Mechanical Artificial Red Cell,”at <http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine/Respirocytes.html> (last visited September 1, 2006).
2.
GimzewskiJ. and VesnaV., “The Nanomeme Syndrome: Blurring of Fact and Fiction in the Construction of a New Science,”Technoetic Arts1, no. 1 (2003): 2–17, at 12. Note this estimation is emphasized by a key researcher (Jim Gimzewski) in the emerging nano-field.
3.
cf. MilburnC., “Nanotechnology in the Age of Posthuman Engineering: Science Fiction as Science,” in HaylesK., ed., Nanoculture – Implications of the New Technoscience (Bristol, UK and Portland, Oregon: Intellect Books, 2004): 109–29; LandonB.“Less is More: Much Less is Much More: The Insistent Allure of Nanotechnology Narratives in Science Fiction,” in HaylesK., ed. Nanoculture – Implications of the New Technoscience (Bristol, UK and Portland, Oregon: Intellect Books, 2004): 131–46; AtteberyB.“Dust, Lust, and Other Messages from the Quantum Wonderworld,” in HaylesK., ed., Nanoculture – Implications of the New Technoscience (Bristol, UK and Portland, Oregon: Intellect Books, 2004): 161–69; LópezJ., “Bridging the Gaps: Science Fiction in Nanotechnology,”HYLE (International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry)10, no. 2 (2004): 129–52, available at <http://www.hyle.org/journal/issues/10-2/lopez.htm> (last visited September 1, 2006).
4.
cf. CoenenC., “Nanofuturismus: Anmerkungen zu seiner Relevanz, Analyse und Bewertung,”Technikfolgenabschätzung – Theorie und Praxis13, no. 2 (2004): 78–85.
5.
With the aim of legitimating themselves, many visionary foresights do not only envision technological innovations, but also societal innovations, insofar as they propose solutions for currently felt social deficits and desires. On the basis of such supposed deficiencies they often “re-ontologize” (see Lopez, supra note 3) the present as a mostly problem-free world in the future – a future, in which respirocytes could enable breathing even “in oxygen-poor environments, or in cases where normal breathing is physically impossible [such as underwater]” (see Freitas, supra note 1). Such radical “re-ontologizations” are taken as the source of both far-reaching prospects envisioning wealth for everyone and radical uncertainties expressed in the shape of dystopian worries.
The “gray [or grey] goo” was originally depicted in DrexlerE. K., Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (New York: Anchor Books, 1986). Also available at <http://www.e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Table_of_Contents.html> (last visited September 11, 2006).
8.
JonasH., The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984): at 34.
9.
MnyusiwallaA.DaarA. S., and SingerP. A., “‘Mind the Gap’: Science and Ethics in Nanotechnology,”Nanotechnology14 (2003): R9–R13, at R10.
10.
RaunerM., “Mit klebrigen Fingern,”DIE ZEIT, December 17, 2003, available at <http://www.zeit.de/2003/52/N-Nanoforschung> (last visited September 1, 2006). The cited sentence is a translation from the following German source: “Solange die Nanotechnologie diffus und unbeschränkt bleibt, sind alle Visionen gleichermaßen rational wie irrational.”
11.
Such an antirealist perspective concerning statements about the future was particularly put forward by Michael Dummett. As a starting point, cf. DummettM.“Realism and Anti-Realism,” in DummettM., ed., The Seas of Language (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996): 462–82.
12.
QuineW. V. O., “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,”Philosophical Review60 (1951): 20–43 [reprinted as: QuineW. V. O.“Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” in QuineW. V. O., ed., From a Logical Point of View (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1953): 20–46, at §6.
13.
The author is aware of the problem, that by using “arational” instead of “irrational”, the Latin negation is substituted by a Greek one. Yet, as the connotation of “irrational” fixedly refers to the opposite of “rational”, “arational” has been chosen to escape this rigid bivalence.
14.
The laboratory studies' approach was inter alia suggested and elaborated by LatourB. and WoolgarS., Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1979); CetinaKnorr K., The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science (Oxford, UK: Pergamon, 1981); LynchM., Art and Artifact in Laboratory Science: A Study of Shop Work and Shop Talk in a Research Laboratory (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985); TraweekS., Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physicists (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988).
15.
Methodological agnosticism, which has much in common with Husserls bracketing in phenomenology, is often practiced in the field of Religious Studies in order to avoid the radical choice between a somewhat debunking skepticism on the one hand, and an endorsement of faith on the other. An often cited source for this methodological imperative is: BellahR.“Religious Studies as ‘New Religion’,” in NeddlemanJ. and BakerG., eds., Understanding the New Religions (New York: Seabury Press, 1978).
16.
The entire correspondence is documented in the following article: BaumR., “Nanotechnology: Drexler and Smalley Make the Case for and Against ‘Molecular Assemblers’,”Chemical and Engineering News, December 1, 2003, 37–42, available at <http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/8148/8148counterpoint.html> (last visited September 6, 2006).
17.
Although no systematic investigation on the debate's media coverage has been undertaken, the significance of the controversy can be read off by the fact that parts of the exchange had even been literally translated into German: cf. Naica-LoebellA.“Riesenstreit im Zwergenland,”TELEPOLIS (2003), at <http://www.telepolis.de/r4/artikel/16/16297/1.html> (last visited September 6, 2006).
18.
BaumR., supra note 16, at 42.
19.
PopperK. R., The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Harper, 1959): at 40ff.
20.
GierynT.“Boundaries of Science,” in JasanoffS.MarkleG. E.PetersonJ. C. and PinchT., eds., Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1995): 393–443, at 405.
21.
Bueno has recently argued that the controversy does not only rest on a scientific underdetermination, but additionally on incommensurabilities identified on three different levels: on a cognitive, a conceptual, as well as on a methodological level: BuenoO., “The Drexler-Smalley Debate on Nanotechnology: Incommensurability at Work?”HYLE (International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry)10, no. 2 (2004): 83–98, available at <http://www.hyle.org/journal/issues/10-2/bueno.htm> (last visited September 6, 2006).
22.
Royal Society & Royal Academy of Engineering, “Nanoscience and Nanotechnlogies: Opportunities and Uncertainties,” RS Policy document 19/04, (London, July 2004)
23.
Id., at 5.
24.
Id., at Annex D.
25.
For instance, the action group on Erosion, Technology, and Concentration [ETC group] has tried to draw the public attention to the event of a “green goo” in recent years: “While ‘Grey Goo’ has grabbed the headlines in the media […], the more likely future threat is that the merger of living and non-living matter will result in hybrid organisms and products that are not easy to control and behave in unpredictable ways. That's the spectre of Green Goo.” ETC group [action group on Erosion, Technology, and Concentration], “A Tiny Primer on Nano-Scale Technologies and ‘the Little Bang Theory’,” (Ottawa, July 2005), available at <http://www.etcgroup.org/upload/publication/55/01/tinyprimer_english.pdf> (last visited September 6, 2006).
