From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Thu Jan 05 2006 - 10:16:09 MST
Amara D. Angelica wrote:
> Just posted:
>
> http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/frame.html?main=news_single.html?id%3D5175
>
> KurzweilAI.net, Jan. 5, 2005
>
> The book HACKING MATTER: Levitating Chairs, Quantum Mirages, and the
> Infinite Weirdness of Programmable Atoms Hacking Matter "contains a deep
> scientific misconception," says a leading nanotechnology expert in response
> to our news item Wednesday.
If this "leading nanotechnology expert" isn't willing to level
criticisms openly and bet their reputation if they turn out to be wrong,
I see no reason why you should refer to this person as a "leading
nanotechnology expert" rather than an "anonymous Internet poster". If
they are not willing to risk their reputation, they should not have the
use of it. And I for one am not willing to blindly delegate my judgment
to KurzweilAI or any other media source about who is "expert" in a
technical field. Scientific commentators are not political
whistleblowers and have absolutely no legitimate need to shield their
identities. This sort of business degrades science, especially when it
is used as a weapon for the anonymous assassination of new ideas.
Seriously.
-- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://intelligence.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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