Report: "Religious Delusion Hampers Nanotechnology"

If that headline had you scratching your head, it should.

Science Daily reports:

Addressing scientists Feb. 15, 2008 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dietram Scheufele, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of life sciences communication, presented new survey results that show religion exerts far more influence on public views of technology in the United States than in Europe.

In a sample of 1,015 adult Americans, only 29.5 percent of respondents agreed that nanotechnology was morally acceptable.

Europeans however, do not look so ascance at the technology:

In European surveys that posed identical questions about nanotechnology to people in the United Kingdom and continental Europe, significantly higher percentages of people accepted the moral validity of the technology. In the United Kingdom, 54.1 percent found nanotechnology to be morally acceptable. In Germany, 62.7 percent had no moral qualms about nanotechnology, and in France 72.1 percent of survey respondents saw no problems with the technology.

Now, here's where things get interesting. Why, do the authors claim, is there a disparity?

The answer, Scheufele believes, is religion: "The United States is a country where religion plays an important role in peoples' lives. The importance of religion in these different countries that shows up in data set after data set parallels exactly the differences we're seeing in terms of moral views. European countries have a much more secular perspective."

The catch for Americans with strong religious convictions, Scheufele believes, is that nanotechnology, biotechnology and stem cell research are lumped together as means to enhance human qualities. In short, researchers are viewed as "playing God" when they create materials that do not occur in nature, especially where nanotechnology and biotechnology intertwine, says Scheufele.

Wow. "Nanotechnology, biotechnology and stem cell research are lumped together."

Let's be clear for a moment. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with nanotechnology, properly termed. And certainly putting it in the same category as "stem cell research" is wrong. The only thing these two things share in common is being microscopic.

If these findings are true, it highlights a distressing reality that educated Catholics have to face: evangelicals and fundamentalists who constittue the so-called "moral majority" in America are an embarassment to us all when they evidence such poor critical thinking skills.

Just look at one example of the criticism this news has provoked:

Hmm. Nanotech could most likely cure cancer, extend life, solve the renewable energy dilemma, and lead to drastically reduced poverty, among other things. Guess who’s against it?

That’s right folks, let’s keep life on earth backward and miserable so we can keep focused on that oh-so-precious afterlife.

The idiocracy is in full-swing in the US of A.

It would be easier to answer this sort of charicature if folks educated themselves before answering surveys.

A more pointed criticism, this from a Wall Street Journal blog:

If you don’t have a super-fast, super-small computer in a few years, blame the moral majority. It turns out that most Americans find nanotechnology, the scientific field most likely to produce such a breakthrough, morally unacceptable.

Frankly, I think that's drastically over-valuing the effect of the "moral majority" lobby. Also, it's a huge generalization, but one that brings out the untenable nature of claiming nanotechnology is "immoral".

Now, don't get me wrong, I'd like to find out how the survey questions were phrased. If the question was along the lines of "do you think nanotechnology has the potential to be abused"? Than sure, that's something one could defensibly argue. As is normally the case, the devil is in the details.

And I truly don't want to think that Americans would rule-out nanotechnology for such poor reasons.

From the original article in Science Daily, a further claim:

The moral qualms people of faith express about nanotechnology is not a question of ignorance of the technology, says Scheufele, explaining that survey respondents are well-informed about nanotechnology and its potential benefits.

"They still oppose it," he says. "They are rejecting it based on religious beliefs. The issue isn't about informing these people. They are informed."

The new study has critical implications for how experts explain the technology and its applications, Scheufele says. It means the scientific community needs to do a far better job of placing the technology in context and in understanding the attitudes of the American public.

This at least gives the respondents a bit more benefit of the doubt. Far more likely than the "nanotechnology reminds me of stem cell research and is therefore wrong" argument is something along the lines of "nanotechnology represents a deep alteration of nature and so must be explored with caution." I agree with that.

There's another dimension to take into consideration - the fusion of nanotechnology and biotechnology. The human application of nanotechnology, for instance, could pose ethical dilemmas. But such is true for all medical procedures, interventions and treatments. What one should not confuse however, is the moral quality of the technology, and the moral quality of the use of that technology. They are separate questions.

Bottom line, there is no reason to rule out nanotechnology because it is technology, or because it is "nano."

So, what should we take from this survey, and its subsequent reporting?

• Many Americans are uneasy about nanotechnology for "religious" reasons
• Those reasons are either not understood or not well presented by the survey takers
• People continually looking for an excuse to blame things on "fundamentalists", have found one
• Two tasks must be taken up: a) educating those who try to take "mental short cuts" about the distinction between technology and the uses of technology b) educating those who charicature "religious reasoning" about the essential role of prudence in scientific discovery and research.

Oddly enough: "Nanotechnology is currently used in 85 personal care products. " - Cosmetic Design