Dyson says Crichton should be heeded! (Score 1)

Did you read the article? Dyson says all of the following:

"The message is that biotechnology in the twenty-first century is as dangerous as nuclear technology in the twentieth. The dangers do not lie in any particular gadgets such as nanorobots or autonomous agents. The dangers arise from knowledge, from our inexorably growing understanding of the basic processes of life. The message is that biological knowledge irresponsibly applied means death. And we may hope that the world will listen. "

Dyson takes the message seriously enough to think that it should, in fact, be heeded not dismissed.

"in the end the technical details do not matter."

So all the nerdly debate about flying nanobots is irrelevant.

"I assume that the growth of biological knowledge during the century now beginning will bring grave dangers to human society and to the ecology of our planet. "

In other words, he does not dispute the basic Joy/Crichton thesis, nor does he pretend that the technical errors in the book matter. If you are following Dyson's argument, then, that is the starting point - *yes* biotechnology is dangerous, and *no* technical quibbles with the book do not matter.

Dyson attempts to counter Crichton's position through analogy to the printing press. Ideas can inspire wars, and the government of Milton's time feared the danger of unfettered ideas among the masses. Milton argued eloquently for press freedom, and, in hindsight, few would dispute that he was right.

The analogy, however, is very weak. The counter to bad ideas is better ideas. Indeed, this is one of the classic arguments for freedom of speech and the press: to prevent the suppression of good ideas along with the bad. There is an assumption that in the long run the ideas that better suit human needs will triumph.

In a Darwinian contest for survival there is no reason to believe that the nanobots that better suit human needs will triumph. Rather it is those that better suit their own needs. A symbiotic relationship with humans is, of course, a valid survival strategy, but hardly the only one and probably not the easiest to achieve.

Conclusion: Joy's point stands; Dyson's does not.