Comment by dkirkman

The whole issue of whether or not nanotech would end up just looking like enzymes was a big part of the famous Drexler/Smalley debate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drexler%E2%80%93Smalley_debate_...)

I always found Smalley's arguments that nanotech would end up looking like biology convincing. Not that I think it matters much: would designing organisms that take the shape of a part and excrete an "exoskeleton" to realize it any less cool than assembling the same thing atom by atom?