A recent polemic against Science Studies by physicist Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont shows how even hard-headed critics of science become woozy and their brains turn to mush as some of the more incredible results of science blur the line to science fiction (Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science, New York: St. Martin's, 1998).
Jim Tour's presentation had a similar effect on the author of this synopsis. He will therefore refrain from repeating the mind-boggling prospects of mole-ware succeeding soft- and hardware, of single molecular chips on which information is transmitted between electrons at the speed of light with a single cm2-chip holding all the information contained in all the libraries in the world, of molecular trucks (they are near to completion in Jim's lab with wheels, axles, chassis and all) being produced in batches of 1023...
What is the relation between this kind of nanoscience to the nanoscience discussed by David Berube. As opposed to some of the visionaries at the Foresight Institute, Jim Tour does not speculate about constituting macroscopic, even organic matter from molecular components. Instead, he makes and connects sharp-tipped wires, clips, and other devices at the order of magnitude of nanometers, i.e., 10-9m. Indeed, the effort required to build the nifty, yet comparatively crude device of a truck at this order of magnitude has convinced Jim Tour that human or strictly material and natural processes may not be capable to build organic structures and that the black box of molecular structure will remain unopened by Darwinian evolutionary biology (cf. Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box, New York: Free Press, 1996).
In the meantime, nanoscientific research reorients chemistry: Customarily chemists have worked in units of moles which contain 6 times 1033 molecules. While Jim "produces" nano-structures in batches of moles, the single molecule represents his unit of analysis: The defect-tolerant self-assembly of a truck or a chip still needs to be individuated as a "device" by this new "technoscience."
Alfred Nordmann
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