AmericanPapist Comments
Is it simple delusion / lack of “critical thinking skills” or is it a philosophical-religious vigilance wary of the seemingly inevitable consequences of such R&D? It seems to me that some deference ought to be given to those historical and philosophical tendencies—thinkers like, to make an odd pairing, Whittaker Chambers or Martin Heidegger—enough at least to erode that rather adolescent platitude, “educate yourself,” and perhaps also the ability to make an ultimate distinction between technology and its uses. For example, what is the essential difference between the scientific motivations and experiments that have enabled nanotechnology and those that have created the stem cell controversy? Is it just a question of determining an appropriate use for available technology?
It seems that in our time even an uneducated or "fundamentalist" caution should not be embarrassing, especially to educated Catholics. I would be more worried if Christian fundamentalists began picking up biology and physics books and treating them like the Bible.
If that headline had you scratching your head, it should.
It did. And so did:
"professor of life sciences communication"
Dear Thomas,
Oddly, from what I've read, American have no problems with genetically modified foods but Europeans do.
An interesting counter-point, to be sure.
I'd like to see how the questions that were put to the participants in the survey were worded; there's a big difference between "Do you have moral/religious objections to nanotechnology?" and "Do you have moral/religious objections to using nanotechnolgy to alter human physiology?".
If you're lumping them all in together, so as to ask "Do you have moral/religious objections to scientific research in the areas of nanotechology and embryonic stem cell research?" then how can you give a nuanced answer to that, especially if the questions are set up on a 'yes or no' basis?
And finally, the interpretation of the results has an effect, too. If the person collating the results decides that "No, I don't mind nanotechnology but I do object to embryonic stem cell work" or "I don't know anything about nanotechnology but I don't think embryonic stem cell research is acceptable" is equivalent to "No to science on religious grounds!" then it's easy to say "Religious nuts want to keep us all backwards and ignorant".
Hmmm - I wonder if this is the talk that the good Professor gave?
http://www.nano-and-society.org/
...ut_Nanotech.pdf
I'm assuming the "survey of 1,015 members of the public" mentioned in the "Science Daily" article is the same as the one instanced here, in the conference of November 2007; there's no specific mention of faith or religion, so I'm assuming that was all dealt with under the heading of 'ethics'. An interesting result is that scientists are *more* concerned about the health and environmental effects of nanotechonolgy than the general public.
Professor (or is it Doctor?) Scheufele seems to be pitching it a bit stronger in the "Science Daily" article; the PDF digest doesn't mention anything about Bible-thumping zealots holding back the march of progress, so maybe just possibly he's putting a bit of spin on the survey results to, let us say, raise the topic in public consciousness?
Re: Fuinseoig,
Let's also not forget that the poll may well have been set up through the phrasing of the questions to elicit precisely this result to allow precisely this spin.
This is not uncommon; indeed, it's far more common for polls like this to be used to alter our opinions and beliefs than to reflect the. It's not without reason I call things like this "Pollitorials."
Hmm, the split between voters for liberal presidential candidates and conservative ones almost exactly matches the split between the sexes. There must be an obvious correlation there...
A does not imply B here!
Scott has hit on a big question here -- how does the survey actually relate religious belief to concerns about this technology?
One of the phrases that I find most interesting in the story is the following:
"The answer, Scheufele believes, is religion"
Did the Professor deduce this based upon data that demonstrate the connection? Or is it really something that he believes based on his own preconceived notions about religious persons' views on science?
Without seeing the actual survey results it's not possible to tell.
A few days ago I made a post about the Samsung SilverCare line of washers. It is receiving much scorn from environmentalists willing to apply the "precautionary principle" to it -- The precautionary principle seems to me to be the secular equivalent of Pascals wager except applied to the environment. The idea is that in the absence of actual scientific data a really good idea something is happening is sufficient enough for action.
Back to the SilverCare washer. The washer uses a process to create what Samsung calls "nanosilver" and which Samsung foolishly advertised killed bacteria instead of just sticking with the seemingly very green "92% energy savings over hot washes" marketing angle. Killing bacteria = bad for the environment. From what I can tell it simply uses a nanotech process to create silver ions (Ag+). The outcome is not much different than processes used in drinking water treatment and pool water disinfection. There are already regulations in place for that. Still, the FDA insists on treating the washer as a pesticide until Samsung can demonstrate that it is not harmful to the environment. Some environmentalists are up in arms because they didn't go so far as to ban the machines. Of course if Samsung had not made the "kills bacteria" claim, they could have gone on for decades spilling silver ions into wastewater and environmentalists would have been none the wiser.
Now, to be consistent, I wonder when they are going to subject all those water treatment plants to the same thing ....
Same problem, different religion.
Oh, sure, especially as we get the little comment about 'it's not lack of information that's the problem; these people are informed and they still oppose it'. In other words, if you think that the possible use of nanotechnology to Create The Master Race - or even if you say "Well, since we don't exactly know the effects that mass use of nanotechnology may have, let us proceed cautiously" - this seems to be taken up as "You explain the science to them, and these freaky bigots *still* aren't satisfied!"
I don't like the automatic opposition of "If you are not 100% enthused by the Wonder of the Science, then you are a Religious Bigot who wants to drage us back to the Dark Ages."
In other words, just because you can do something is not a sufficient reason to go ahead and do it. I'm not opposed to nanotechnology per se, I just want to see more about what is actually feasible at the moment (not fanboy 'we'll be able to build super-duper computers on a grain of rice!' forecasting).
I'm a Trad Catholic and a scientist and I see nothing inherently wrong with nanotechnology, nor have I ever. I suspect this article is a desperate attempt by atheist and agnostic scientists to discredit religious scientists after we were proven right on embryonic stem cells not being neccessary for curing any number of diseases
I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with nanotechnology, but I do think there seems to be a lot of fiddling and very little explanation going on. I'm glad I don't use much in the way of cosmetic products, as I'd hate to sit around trying to figure out which products I used which were putting some unknown tech on my face or scalp.
Genetically engineered plants and food do seem to get tested extensively; and I do understand the principles involved. As long as they're not fiddling with human genes, it seems to be allowed by traditional religious memes -- dominion and stewardship of the creatures. If we're allowed to breed and hybridize plants, we're probably allowed to snip and paste plant genes, too.
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