For nano, religion in US dictates a wary view

When it comes to the world of the very, very small — nanotechnology — Americans have a big problem: Nano and its capacity to alter the fundamentals of nature, it seems, are failing the moral litmus test of religion.

In a report published today (Dec. 7) in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, survey results from the United States and Europe reveal a sharp contrast in the perception that nanotechnology is morally acceptable. Those views, according to the report, correlate directly with aggregate levels of religious views in each country surveyed.

In the United States and a few European countries where religion plays a larger role in everyday life, notably Italy, Austria and Ireland, nanotechnology and its potential to alter living organisms or even inspire synthetic life is perceived as less morally acceptable. In more secular European societies, such as those in France and Germany, individuals are much less likely to view nanotechnology through the prism of religion and find it ethically suspect.

"The level of 'religiosity' in a particular country is one of the strongest predictors of whether or not people see nanotechnology as morally acceptable," says Dietram Scheufele, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of life sciences communication and the lead author of the new study. "Religion was the strongest influence over everything."

The study compared answers to identical questions posed by the 2006 Eurobarometer public opinion survey and a 2007 poll by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center conducted under the auspices of the National Science Foundation-funded Center for Nanotechnology and Society at Arizona State University. The survey was led by Scheufele and Elizabeth Corley, an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University.

The survey findings, says Scheufele, are important not only because they reveal the paradox of citizens of one of the world's elite technological societies taking a dim view of the implications of a particular technology, but also because they begin to expose broader negative public attitudes toward science when people filter their views through religion.

"What we captured is nanospecific, but it is also representative of a larger attitude toward science and technology," Scheufele says. "It raises a big question: What's really going on in our public discourse where science and religion often clash?"

For the United States, the findings are particularly surprising, Scheufele notes, as the country is without question a highly technological society and many of the discoveries that underpin nanotechnology emanated from American universities and companies. The technology is also becoming more pervasive, with more than 1,000 products ranging from more efficient solar panels and scratch-resistant automobile paint to souped-up golf clubs already on the market.

"It's estimated that nanotechnology will be a $3.1 trillion global industry by 2015," Scheufele says. "Nanotechnology is one of those areas that is starting to touch nearly every part of our lives."

To be sure that religion was such a dominant influence on perceptions of nanotechnology, the group controlled for such things as science literacy, educational performance, and levels of research productivity and funding directed to science and technology by different countries.

"We really tried to control for country-specific factors," Scheufele explains. "But we found that religion is still one of the strongest predictors of whether or not nanotechnology is morally acceptable and whether or not it is perceived to be useful for society."

The findings from the 2007 U.S. survey, adds Scheufele, also suggest that in the United States the public's knowledge of nanotechnology has been static since a similar 2004 survey. Scheufele points to a paucity of news media interest and the notion that people who already hold strong views on the technology are not necessarily seeking factual information about it.

"There is absolutely no change in what people know about nanotechnology between 2004 and 2007. This is partly due to the fact that mainstream media are only now beginning to pay closer attention to the issue. There has been a lot of elite discussion in Washington, D.C., but not a lot of public discussion. And nanotechnology has not had that catalytic moment, that key event that draws public attention to the issue."

I don’t understand what moral objections could be made to nanotechnology.

I don't get it either, except to make a wild guess and say this seems an apparently agenda-driven study saying less about science and more about fashion law, science-worshipers who mistakenly believe "religion" is an enemy of truth, Christianity in particular. Nothing could be further from the truth, so to speak. The scientific method is based on a preconception that truth exists to be discovered, without which experimentation would be meaningless. This is why science flourished in the West. We are forever hearing about those established orders wedded to the State and Academia overtly hostile to science, Galileo in particular and as an example. He was a "court favorite" in the Vatican for nearly two decades before a rival family elected one of their own Pope. It was only then that he came under what can only be called political persecution.

There’s a reason I abhor organized religion, and distrust most overtly religious people.

Very carefully chosen words, which I deeply appreciate, as a Christian who sees no final conflict between "truths" and as someone who eschews any "collective," believing memberships will count for nothing in the long run since we die alone and face God for what we alone have or have not done. I am not ashamed of the Gospel, but will not allow any person or institution to prevail over my own assessment of how I should feel about myself and what I have come to believe.

I consider this shoddy science from tenured individuals or their graduate students that serves no useful purpose, reveals nothing useful except a facade of "science" to give dumb and poorly educated, but nevertheless, lettered or potentially lettered people an excuse from an honest examination of the evidence.

As a Christian, if I am so confident in Christ, I can fellowship and move in and out of scientific circles knowing neither Religion nor Science must rest on truth but can, of themselves, never deliver an exhaustive truth. If Christ is Truth, He can stand the examination, and He isn't worried about His poll numbers, particularly on Campus.

This has got to be up there in the ranks of one of the dumbest wastes of academic time I've encountered, and it is essentially jibber-jabber. These bean counters and bottle washers might just as well as studied evidences of attitudes to hammers or hygene.

It is another excuse to persecute young Christians poorly prepared to defend their faith, those this is less of a problem than it used to be, for some, because over the years thought has been given to going beyond kindergarten Christianity to the historic stream of Western Civilization. In some cases, they are far better prepared than it would have been possible for me to believe twenty years ago.

As to the overtly religious, I'm with you, brudda. Again, as a Christian, like Newton or Kepler, etc., etc., I look to Christ's finished work on the cross and act accordingly, not trying to merit the unmerited favor paid for by someone else. If two people stand under a full Moon, and one jumps an inch higher, is the higher jumper closer to the Moon? Not by enough to get him from here to there, that's for sure.

Away with all Baby Talk, whether from the pulput or the podium.

God Save the Republic!

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