Dr. David M. Berube

Dr. Berube said the following about Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines

Fascinating read. I enjoyed the delineations between reproduction and replication. I also agree that there’s this peculiar psychology that makes people unable to understand that replication does not mean “out of nothing”. That’s magic and not science. When coupled with “necessary degeneracy” we have a conflation of misunderstandings that plague serious discussion of replicating machines. How to debunk this peculiar misapprehension is a challenge. I really enjoyed the discussion of “forward-” and “backward-chaining”. I think it is a wonderfully visual way to describe technological innovation.

Dr. David M. Berube is Professor of Communication Studies and NanoSTS, Communication Coordinator for International Council on Nanotechnology USC NanoCenter, and Director of Nano-Ethics. He is on the advisory committee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, and on the advisory committee of the International Council on Nanotechnology. He is the author of Nano-Hype: The Truth Behind the Nanotechnology Buzz, Non-Policy Debating, the innovative Amazon download Nanotechnology politics: An article from: Issues in Science and Technology, and of the blog NanoHype: Nanotechnology Implications and Interactions. He is the recipient of a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant (2003–2007) to study the ethical implications of nanotechnology and is associated as a site manager, CoPI, or mentor on two others.
 
David teaches a range of courses in the speech division of the Department of English. He also is the director of Carolina Debate. He has been publishing in the areas of debate theory and pedagogy, rhetoric of technology, especially newly emergent technologies and nanotechnology, and posthumanism. He is also a union dramatist, Equity actor and a journalist with over 150 newspaper articles in print.
 
His professional papers include “SEIN (Societal and Ethical Implications of Nanotechnology”, Testimony before the Committee to Review that national Nanotechnology Initiative, Assess the Responsible Development of Nanotechnology, and Determine the Technical Feasibility of Molecular Self Assembly, National Materials Advisory Board, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, February 9–11, 2005, “Understanding Posthumanism — Debunking the Humanists: Arguments from Science Fiction and Faction”, a paper presented at the Twelfth Annual International Conference in Literature and the Visual Arts, including Cinema, State University of West Georgia, Atlanta Renaissance Hotel – Downtown, Atlanta, GA, October 23, 1997 and “Claims of Techno-Visionaries: An Analysis of Nanotechnology through the Rhetoric of K. Eric Drexler and the Foresight Institute”, a paper presented at the Communication in High Risk Technologies: Global and Local Ethical Concerns Seminar, Speech Communication Association Convention, Atlanta, 31 October 1991.
 
David received a B.A. in Psychology/Biology from Seton Hall University in 1975, a M.A. in Speech and Theatre from Montclair State College in 1978, and a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from New York University in 1990.
 
Read his official Lifeboat Foundation blog NanoHype: Nanotechnology Implications and Interactions.
 
Read his LinkedIn profile.