Drexler - Smalley Response - Due 7/7

• What is the main point of contention between Drexler and Smalley?
• Smalley does not think molecular assemblers as envisioned by Drexler are physically possible.
• What is at stake in their argument?
• The future of Nanotechnology research.
• Name a few strategies they use to refute the other side.
• Drexley argues that Smalley's interpretation of his works is wrong, and that his arguments are not related to the issue at hand at all
• Smalley makes Drexley look like an uncooperative man, who doesn't want to talk about the things Smalley is trying to get into a conversation about. 
• Drexley uses Smalley's own words against him to refute his arguments about impossibilities: "A scientist whose research I respect has observed that 'when a scientist says something is possible, they're probably underestimating how long it will take. But if they say it's impossible, they're probably wrong.' The scientist quoted is, of course, Richard Smalley."
• How does both Smalley and Drexler develop their ethos (provide an example)
• They cite their experience with the subject, and their previous works as well as others' works. 
• "I have a 20 year history of technical publications in this area and consistently describe systems quite unlike the straw man you attack [Annu. Rev. Biophys. Biomol. Struct., 23, 337 (1994); Phil. Trans. R. Soc. London A, 353, 323 (1995)]."
• Point to at least one logical fallacy used on both sides and explain why it is fallacy (see GRs pg 17-19)
• Either-or fallacy by Drexler: "...one must either choose different conditions (different positions, reactants, adjacent groups) or choose another synthetic target." Those are not neccessarily the only two options
• Oversimplification by Smalley: " You are still in a pretend world where atoms go where you want because your computer program directs them to go there." That is not exactly what Drexler is saying. Drexler is saying we can use machines to organize some compounds which will affect the molecules we want to affect. It is much more complicated than just telling the milecule where we want it to go.
• Which side to do you think was more convincing and why?
• Drexley seemed more convincing to me, as Smalley sounded more like an angry little kid who was trying to win the argument by pushing the other away. Drexley used logos a lot more, while Smalley used pathos, and that is why in a sense Drexley was easier to believe in a talk about scientific research.