I have to disagree about your statement that simple adults believe the Bible literally because they lack the capacity to grasp the deeper lessons. I grew up in a literalist "the Bible is the inerrant word of God" church. Sermons and lessons were chocked full of deeper moral lessons from both the Old and New Testaments. Some of the most subtle insights into human nature I've ever heard came out of sermons based on Jesus's parables.

That said, there were doctrines where my church would not bend, eg those beliefs unique to our denomination that really weren't supportable by any reasonable reading of the Bible or were in direct conflict with scientific observation. If you questioned them, you would typically get either a) an unsatisfactory misreading of one or more biblical verses b) a glassy eyed look c) an unsupportable rationalization ("well you know to God, a billion years is like a day") d) or a quick change of subject.

I think that basically what this represents is not that the believers of that church were somehow cognitively inferior, but that they simply were caught in a set of self-reinforcing memes that required them to have mental blind-spots when it came to entertaining certain questions, thoughts, or observations. It was a powerful and compelling force.

It took me years after I figured out that they believed a bunch of unsupportable fantasy before I finally broke away. The draw to believe in the group consensus view was strong enough to keep me trying for years after I had effectively lost faith and begun finding my own truth (of which science figures in prominently).

And of course the tag line is: "iZombie, its for people with BRAINS!"

Again, shenanigans. I never claimed Drexler came up with Nanotechnology. I said he did the first substantial work on machine-phase nanotechnology... something Smalley spent well over a decade trying to discredit. I remember the arguments and counter arguments back in the early 90s. Of course lots of scientists have been working at the nano-level before and since. My point was that for that specific type of proposed nanotechnology (mechanosynthesis, assemblers, dissassemblers, etc) that these guys did the first serious theoretical work. I still stand by that based on the evidence.

The reason you got attitude from me was that your dismissive attitude towards them and their achievements. I certainly respect both theoretical and experimental research in this or any other scientific field. However, it looked like you were minimizing the importance of the necessary theoretical portions and elevating the experimental. THAT is what I was pushing back against.

I certainly wish you and your compatriots great luck and success in your efforts. I fully understand that without guys like you, its just equations on a page or simulations in a computer ... worthless unless applied.

"None of these guys has worked in a nanotechnology lab. None of these guys has tried to build something starting from atoms. "

I call shenanigans. Every one of these guys has substantial nanotech street cred going back 20 years or more. Every single one of them has "worked in a nanotech lab". Most of them FOUNDED the discipline of Molecular Nanotechnology.

Drexler did the first substantial theoretical work on precision mechanosynthesis of molecules, the limits and restrictions on carbon-carbon mechanosythesis, charted possible paths to research and development, and so on. Oh and besides providing the theoretical underpinnings for molecular manufacturing (a new term that had to be created because opportunists like Dr. Richard Smalley successfully co-opted the term "nanotechnology" all the while trying to kill the credibility of Drexler and mechanosythesis approaches), Drexler is one of the strongest voices promoting thinking ahead about the risks and ethical implications of widespread use of molecular machines. The Foresight Institute was set up in large part to think ahead of nanotech development and be prepared with ethical and legal guidelines for the development and use of molecular nanotechnology. Oh, and he got the first EVER PhD in Nanotechnology.

Hall, besides being the founding chief scientist of Nanorex (who are developing open-source computational tools to support research in structural DNA nanotechnology), he's published a trunkload of papers on various aspects of nanotechnology. You can find a list here

Merkle did some of the first work on computational modeling of carbon-carbon nanostructures for mechanosynthesis. He worked as a research scientist at Zyvex, the first commercial nanotech research company, for several years. He's apparently still actively researching. His list of recent research papers, along with Freitas's, are here

Freitas is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Molecular Manufacturing. He's published a raft of papers (see link above) and did the first practical research on the theoretical underpinnings of nanomedicine, which he published in his book NANOMEDICINE.

They may not be pushing atoms around with an AFM (or whatever you are doing), but they are laying the foundations for the science and engineering of molecular manufacturing.

Show some respect.