As a general rule, I would never chase after a story that Glenn Reynolds has already linked to. I mean, you've already read it there, right? Why indulge in pointless redundancy? But in this case, the link was rather inconspicuous, and the word "NanoBioTech" may have discouraged some readers from clicking through. That being the case, allow me some well meant copy-cattery. Ron Bailey had some observations which I found worthwhile, and would like to bring to your attention.

These little snippets don't do justice to the entire article, but focus on a few points that I particularly agree with. The boldfacing, as usual, is my own alteration.

Safety, however, is not what causes the greatest unease for some who contemplate nanobio. They fear that nanobio enhancements will dramatically change human nature...

Goldstein complains that bioethicists have not done enough hard thinking about the ethical issues raised by the possibility of nanobio enhancements. He calls on us all to do a lot of very very very hard thinking before we go forward with the development of nanobio...Goldstein also wants researchers to begin a "dialogue" with the public about these impending revolutionary changes.

But this sober call for harder thinking and more dialogue is a characteristic move in much of what passes for bioethical thinking. Instead of providing final answers, academic and government funded bioethicists artfully protest, "I am just asking some hard questions here. It’s my job to ask hard questions."

But the implication is that technologists and researchers should stop what they are doing until the bioethicists have come up with the answers to all the hard questions that they are asking...

Waiting until the ethicists catch up with scientific and technological progress is a recipe for technological stagnation.

Slowing innovation is not cost free. It makes a difference to tens of millions of people whether a cure for cancer or heart disease is found in 2010 or 2020...

The plain fact is that bioethics has advanced by codifying what we have learned from our past ethical blunders rather than by anticipating and preventing immoral acts.

Forget trying to anticipate ethical problems. Even the smartest people cannot figure out how scientific and technological advances will play out over the next few decades, much less centuries...

However revolutionary nanobiotech turns out to be...the revolution will develop incrementally. Humanity will have lots of opportunities for course corrections as we go along...

As for worries about nanobio's effect on human nature, it's worth remembering that human nature is not some property that inheres in the species in general: Human nature belongs to each individual human being, and each one of us has the right to change our own human nature.

This means that we all have the right to choose to use or not use new technologies to help us and our families to flourish. If our descendants don’t "breed like us, feed like us, or need like us," then that’s because they will decide that they have better alternatives.

I hope Mr. Bailey will forgive the liberties I've taken with his article. He has put his finger on some of the sources of my ongoing irritation with the bioethical mandarinate.

From where do they derive the legitimacy of their authority? How long are we supposed to think before they allow that we have the right to act? Why do they even get a say in the matter?

In my more irascible moments, I think of them as parasites, plain and simple.