Nanotech and the Crackpot Index

Nanotech and the Crackpot Index: How not to sell the public on the urgency of preparing for major changes

In rereading Engines of Creation, it occurred to me that its tone was a bit more like a science fiction novel than it should be, and that it might be easy for a perfectly rational person who doesn't have time to read much science fiction to dismiss the book without giving it enough thought to develop an informed opinion on the subject. It also occurred to me that there is a fairly well articulated set of rules that people use to decide whether to look deeper at an unusual theory than the sound-bite level, namely the Crackpot Index. So I decided to take a carefull look at how a typical smart, busy person who surfing the web or is glancing at Engines of Creation in a bookstore might go about deciding what to make of the hypothesis that a nanotech revolution is only a decade or two away.

Please note that I'm not focussing on the nanotech is physically possible hypothesis. I'm focussing on the hypothesis that it will happen soon, and how it appears to a person who is uncertain whether to invest some time evaluating nanotech.

The numbered lines below are taken from the Crackpot Index, and are followed by my analysis (in this style) of how nanotech enthusiasts score; sometimes based on searches of www.foresight.org, sometimes on my less reliable recollection.

THE CRACKPOT INDEX

A simple method for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to physics.

A -5 point starting credit.
1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false.
It's unclear how many statements qualify, but the widespread complacency about the issues raised by Engines implies that there are probably some statements that qualify.
2 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous.
No.
3 points for every statement that is logically inconsistent.
No.
5 points for each such statement that is adhered to despite careful correction.
A few quick checks via crit.org and Google's backlink feature finds the attempts at "carefull correction" by Nature, Scientific American (both of which appear to come closer to qualifying for this criterion than Engines), and Geniebusters, where the casual surfer is likely to see reasonable differences of opinion on how hard AI is and how sudden technological advances typically are.
5 points for using a thought experiment that contradicts the results of a widely accepted real experiment.
Not much here. A really hasty reader might assume that the something contradicts the quantum uncertainty principle, but Engines does about as good a job as possible of handling this as is possible.
5 points for each word in all capital letters (except for those with defective keyboards).
No more caps in Engines than in a typical book.
5 points for each mention of "Einstien", "Hawkins" or "Feynmann".
No such spellings in the www.foresight.org site.
10 points for each claim that quantum mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
No.
10 points for pointing out that you have gone to school, as if this were evidence of sanity.
The jacket of my copy of Engines of Creation mentions Eric's connection to MIT, but only in a way that is typical for the kind of biography people expect there.
10 points for beginning the description of your theory by saying how long you have been working on it.
No.
10 points for mailing your theory to someone you don't know personally and asking them not to tell anyone else about it, for fear that your ideas will be stolen.
I'm not sure how people would detect the absence of this, but Foresight has certainly been advocating openness in a way that appears inconsistent with this fear.
10 points for offering prize money to anyone who proves and/or finds any flaws in your theory.
The Feynman Grand Prize appears to fit this fairly well.
I suspect this criterion reflects more of a bias towards current methods of financing research than an ideal Crackpot Index would, but disagreeing with the scientific establishment's methods correlates well enough with crackpotism that it isn't surprising that people might use this criterion.
10 points for each statement along the lines of "I'm not good at math, but my theory is conceptually right, so all I need is for someone to express it in terms of equations".
No. Nanosystems probably provokes this sentiment in nanocritics.
10 points for arguing that a current well-established theory is "only a theory", as if this were somehow a point against it.
References to Popper appear to make the opposite point.
10 points for arguing that while a current well-established theory predicts phenomena correctly, it doesn't explain "why" they occur, or fails to provide a "mechanism".
No.
10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Einstein, or claim that special or general relativity are fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
A quick search of www.foresight.org yields a TIME magazine speculation putting Drexler on par with Einstein, but mentions of Einstein by more serious nanotech advocates appear to be the opposite of crackpot-style.
10 points for claiming that your work is on the cutting edge of a "paradigm shift".
I see one such claim:
Inside Foresight: Paradigm Shift in Progress
20 points for suggesting that you deserve a Nobel prize.
No clear indication of whether Eric would be proud of one if he got it.
20 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Newton or claim that classical mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
No.
20 points for every use of science fiction works or myths as if they were fact.
Nothing clearly fitting this description, but the general tone and conclusions might lead a careless reader to expect that carefull analysis would reveal something that qualifies.
20 points for defending yourself by bringing up (real or imagined) ridicule accorded to your past theories.
I haven't found this in Engines, but the reaction to the infamous Scientific American article appears to qualify.
20 points for each use of the phrase "hidebound reactionary".
No.
20 points for each use of the phrase "self-appointed defender of the orthodoxy".
No.
30 points for suggesting that a famous figure secretly disbelieved in a theory which he or she publicly supported. (E.g., that Feynman was a closet opponent of special relativity, as deduced by reading between the lines in his freshman physics textbooks.)
No.
30 points for suggesting that Einstein, in his later years, was groping his way towards the ideas you now advocate.
Not Einstein, but some of the references to Feynman look sort of similar. Does having good evidence qualify as a defence here? I don't know.
30 points for claiming that your theories were developed by an extraterrestrial civilization (without good evidence).
No.
40 points for comparing those who argue against your ideas to Nazis, stormtroopers, or brownshirts.
No.
40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.
While concepts such as conspiracy are clearly absent from most nanotech discussions, complaints about the attitude of the scientific establishment aren't unusual. For example, this quote from Foresight Update 25 Page 6:
segments of the science establishment are still having difficulties with some quite simple ideas.

Note that evidence that complaints about the establishment opinion are true and justified aren't much of a reason to alter the score here.
40 points for comparing yourself to Galileo, suggesting that a modern-day Inquisition is hard at work on your case, and so on.
No.
40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is. (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)
Not really, although there are some claims along the lines of "Scientific American was forced to recant".
50 points for claiming you have a revolutionary theory but giving no concrete testable predictions.
Engines goes out of its way to emphasize the revolutionary nature of its theories. While the theories are clearly testable, a casual reader is as likely to see the kind of useless testability that is associated with a "world will end tomorrow" forecast (useless in the sense of not being testable until it's too late to prepare for the predicted event) as she is to see the extent to which nanocritics claims have been falsified.
After writing the first version of this essay, I noticed that page 229 of Engines contains a prediction (published in 1986, probably written in 1985) that
Within ten years, the costs [of hypertext systems] seem likely to fall low enough for mass-market use.
It's hard to beat that for a timing forecast that has been confirmed, although it's hard enough to find that only a small fraction of casual surfers will notice it.

In sum, while a carefull reader should probably assign a score of -5 to Engines of Creation, and the Foresight web site as a whole probably earns a score of +35, someone doing a hasty web search might assign a score as high as +200 without being clearly irrational.

Some emphasis on the sensational aspects of nanotech may have been wise in 1986, when a book with as dull a style as Nanosystems might have gotten virtually no attention, but today it mainly attracts people who want or expect to live in interesting times, when we really need to focus more on getting the attention of people who would be more comfortable imitating ostriches.

Unfortunately, there are enough memes competing for peoples' attention that there are few good alternatives to emphasizing the sensational.

The URL of this document is http://www.rahul.net/pcm/crackpot.html.