05 December 2007

Nanoconvergence: The Unity of Nanoscience, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science -- William Sims Bainbridge



I actually wrote a review of this on Amazon.com. That is how disgusted I was with this book. The problem is that the title was very enticing to me. I am extremely interested in the convergence of cognitive science, information technology and biotechnology. I suppose the concept of "nanoscience" interests me too, but the term is just so broad that I have trouble saying it without the quotes. I agree with many of the ideas in the book, although I could have written the entire intellectually interesting parts of this book in about 5 pages. The rest was fluff by a sociologist who really wishes he was smart enough to do real science. To the popular reader, he might seem like he actually knows what he is talking about, which is partially scary. The scariest part is that he is up near the top of the NSF, which basically shows how idiotic some of the people making political decisions are. Do not read this book if you can help it even though the title and the pretty cover picture make it seem so appealing. I hope to find some better book on the subject to recommend for this area of interest, but as of yet I do not know of one.