Nanobiotechnology and voodoo.

December 8, 2006 by muyiwa

I ended yesterday's entry with a promise to describe what went through my mind as I sat listening to Dr. Asemota's presentation on nanobiotechnology. The first connection I made was with Michael Crichton's Prey, which I read a couple of years ago. At that time, I felt that the book was probably an attempt to sound a note of warning about the potential for the then just-emerging field of nanotechnology to go in ways that man would find difficult to control. But here I was, listening to an academic who's already started working with these monsters too small to be seen with the naked eye. It was indeed a feeling of deja-vu.

There seems to be a difference though, between Crichton's nanoparticles' ability to be autonomous and act of their own volition, without the influence of, or instructions from, their human creators on the one hand, and Dr. Asemota's approach of the human creators remotely controlling “her” nanoparticles. In Dr. Asemota's scenario, nanoparticles already present, or injected into the human body could be remotely controlled to act as agents which will carry out surgery, delivery of drugs to specific parts of the body, etc.

I had to ask myself, if nanoparticles already present in the human body can be remotely controlled, what's to say that people who cast spells (i.e. voodoo, magic, etc.) haven't always used this mechanism before nanobiotechnology came along? What if the much-maligned African voodoo which has been around for centuries, is what science is now just cottoning up to in the twenty-first century. Is science “going back to the future”? I wonder.