Drexler/Smalley Response

• What is the main point of contention between Drexler and Smalley?
• What is at stake in their argument?
• Name a few strategies they use to refute the other side.
• How does both Smalley and Drexler develop their ethos (provide an example)
• Point to at least one logical fallacy used on both sides and explain why it is fallacy (see GRs pg 17-19)
• Which side to do you think was more convincing and why?

1. The main point that is contented between Drexler and Smalley is whether or not nano technology could be something that will be inevitable in the future. No matter how far the argument goes that is the core of the argument.
2. What is at stake is their ethos. Smalley has been called out essentially by Drexler and therefore has to prove his credibility.
3. The first strategy was the public letters sent between the two. Then using the letters as ethos boosters they both stated what backgrounds they have with big name drops. Finally Smalley using the attack made by Drexler to look like the better man by apologizing and agreeing with him.
4. Smalley's- "This proposal has been defended successfully again and again, in journal articles, in my MIT doctoral thesis [the basis of "Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation," John Wiley & Sons (1992)]. " MIT name drop
5. Drexler's "RICHARD E. SMALLEY is the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry and Physics at Rice University. He received the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of fullerenes"(Of Chemistry,Love and Nanobot)
6. The most obvious one was the one Smalley himself pointed out,"Your reliance on this straw-man attack might lead a thoughtful observer to suspect that no one has identified a valid criticism of my work"(Nano technology). I know its a fallacy because straw man means it sets up the opposing argument in a way that is easy to reject.
7. I think Drexler is because to me he seems he has been doing research on the nano tech for a long and great deal. Smalley just seems to just critique and play the nice guy as well which I don't trust.