[donh]

Nuts. Biological systems are extremely more efficient taken as a whole. Efficient in every sense...Energy efficient - more energy converted to do more work.

My nutcracker weighs less than the palm of my hand, it takes a good deal more pressure for a needle to penetrate its skin, it requires less pressure to crack nuts, and can sit in a kitchen drawer consuming absolutely no energy for 100 years, and will still work fine when I choose to deploy it. What do irrelevant, overblown statements like this serve? Is this how you think science works?--you make vastly overreaching statements of doubtful meaning, probity, or relevance, hang a science label on it, and claim it's just as good as actual science? Or is the point just to wear down your deponents with this constant barrage of distracting nonsense?

And I really think you are obsessive about the "expensive" issue. You included it in your demarcation criteria,

I see, so science marches on experiments or field work that can't possibly be done with the resources we possess. I can understand, given the argument you are trying to make, that you'd prefer that science be pretty much any feverish incantation of a thought-experiment you can conjure up.

and now you are saying that supporting life is "expensive". I am unsure how. Biological systems do not have currency; they get what they need for free.

Biological systems do not get what they need for free. They pay dearly for what they need, and sooner or later, it kills them for the trouble.

The "ultimate goal" was not a claim I invented, but quoted from a leader in the field.

I see. Did the other couple of thousand researchers and investors sign a document concurring? Do you think the ultimate goal of mathematics is to be formally demonstrable from the basic laws of logic, because a leading light of the field, Bertrand Russell, said so?

Once this goal is achieved, atom by atom assembly of living organisms will be on the table.

Yea, this is how you do science--you remake some warmed-over, unlikely, drivel out of an adolescent science fiction story and claim it's a significant scientific experiment.

[unlearner]

"so science marches on experiments or field work that can't possibly be done with the resources we possess"

Sometimes tests of theories are put forward for which science must wait for technology to become available.

"Biological systems do not get what they need for free."

Whatever. I think you ought to just concede that budget is not a demarcation criterion. This pettiness is unbecoming.

"Did the other couple of thousand researchers and investors sign a document concurring?"

Here you go again, trying to nitpick while missing the thrust of the argument. It really does not matter if only one in a hundred investors believe we will ever be able to assemble custom materials atom by atom. It doesn't matter if seventy per cent of the experts disagree with this goal. It is enough that some investors and some researchers DO have it as a goal. This contradicts your claim that no one has any interest in technology that would support my test. The fact is, my test will be achievable if certain industry leaders of nanotechnology achieve their goal.

"Yea, this is how you do science--you remake some warmed-over, unlikely, drivel out of an adolescent science fiction story and claim it's a significant scientific experiment."

No. I think I've read eight books on this subject in which this proposition was discussed and debated. Eric Drexler is the leading proponent of mimicking the assembly line at the atomic level. His detractors explain why this may not be possible. There are plenty of scientists working in this field who believe the objective is reachable. It is not science fiction.