Didn a Nobel prize-winning scientist say that nanotech isn a threat?
Richard Smalley (Nobel laureate, chemistry) has referred to the the earth-devouring grey goo scenario (in which out-of-control or weaponized nanites reduce the planet to a pile of atoms) as a “fuzzy-minded nightmare dream.” It is important to realize that Dr. Smalley made this public statement while seeking approval of a half-billion dollar nanotechnology funding bill [12] from Congress which could easily have denied the funding or attempted to pass a research moratorium in the face of widespread public concern over safety issues. His actual comment was: “We should not let this fuzzy-minded nightmare dream scare us away from nanotechnology…NNI [the National Nanotechnology Initiative] should go forward.” [13] Had he said, instead, that nanotechnology might destroy the planet, it is somewhat less likely that the NNI funding bill would have passed. Interestingly, a provision of the more recent bill which became the $3.7 billion 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act [1
