2 responses so far ↓

• 1
  Teshi // Feb 26, 2008 at 5:28 pm

  The results this study yields are vague, and the article about it even vaguer; perhaps unacceptably so to use it as a source and draw such dramatic conclusions (something the author of the article also does).

  I’d like to suggest that perhaps some of the problem lies in the the study itself, particularly use of the word “morally” rather than a less loaded statement such as “I am wary of nanotechnology” suggesting fear rather that outright moral objection (is it possible that the word “morally” has acquired a shifted meaning in a country where it crops up so often?).

  Besides that entirely, this statement makes no sense! What possible moral objection could there be to building smaller computers? “Really tiny things are bad?” “God hates really tiny things?” “I have a fear of things I can’t see?” Perhaps a very small portion of people would feel that way, but not 70%. Perhaps people are thinking of ‘nanotechnology’, as your picture so aptly illustrates, as purely medicine-based, robots-in-your-bloodstream, brain and body enhancement and all that. I can logically see people being “morally” opposed to something like that. This agrees with the conclusions drawn by everyone looking at this study: people don’t know what nanotechnology is or what it means or what it could be used for. Which makes the results to this question revealing only of the ignorance of the populace, rather than their moral fear. The headline should should “Americans Likely Don’t Know What Nanotechnology Is”.

  (Interestingly, neither does my spellchecker).

  The above entirely aside, I disagree with your final statement. The uniformed public aren’t “predisposed to oppose science” they’re predisposed to “oppose” or at least regard with skepticism, change. Especially change they seem to know very little about and do not understand, and change that seems (by the apparent phrasing of the question) to have a moral dimension. This applies doubly to a society like America where a mostly invented “moral” battleground between various pairs of things, not necessarily scientific, exists.

  I think that using this apparently inconclusive badly-worded study and this iffyly written article which raises none of the obvious points with the professor it interviews, demonstrates- to a small extent- the very lack of common sense which you are criticizing.

• 2
  Paul // Feb 26, 2008 at 6:20 pm

  For more details on the poll and its results, refer to the University’s news post on the subject here: http://nanopublic.blogspot.com/2008/02/religion-and-nano-what-data-show.html

  For the record, I’m hesistant to agree with Dr. Scheufele’s conclusion that this is entirely related to the country’s religiosity.

  As for your gripe, you make a good point that the poll itself should be treated with skepticism (as the context of any survey’s questioning is key in the validity of the results). I’d avoid, however, the post-hoc rationalization that the results are unbelievable, and therefore the study is erroneous. This may not be a scientific argument, but the results do not, at least, surprise me by much. Each person polled was asked whether he/she finds nanotechnology to be morally justifiable. The majority, it seems, said no. It wouldn’t be fair to dismiss the results themselves due to a faulty conclusion, just as it wouldn’t be fair to accept any inference made by anyone without the appropriate data to back it up.

  I myself tend to agree that this is a case of ignorance and not that of religion or the inherent ambiguity of morality. And furthermore, I would be very careful to avoid attributing ambivalence toward technology as skepticism. That may merely be bias on my part, but I believe the skeptic perspective would be to avoid claiming an untested or unpracticed leap in technology to be immoral or at the very least morally uncertain.

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