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

The Moralities of House: Season 4, Episodes 1 & 2

House M.D. is back! And with it's return, I'm resuming my series on "The Moralities of House." I'm not the only Catholic who thinks that House M.D. is good television. Recently a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life praised the show in an interview with Zenit.

House is not only good television, it's becoming a phenomenon:

The return of the charmingly arrogant Dr. Gregory House on primetime television was a rousing success for the FOX network. House ran away with the highest ratings Tuesday night with its fourth season premiere.

House came away with 18.1 million viewers and a 7.7 rating/19 share in the 18-49 adult demographic for the 9pm to 10 pm time slot. The Hugh Laurie-led ensemble medical dramedy surged on despite competition from ABC's Dancing with the Stars and NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which opened its ninth season.

House's impressive numbers made it the highest-rated premiere in the pivotal age bracket, for any network thus far in the 2007 fall season. It was FOX's highest rated drama series premiere in almost seven years. [- House M.D. Fan Blog.]

With so many folks watching House, it's important that someone, somewhere on the internet take a look at its content from a Catholic ethical and artistic perspective. And until someone better comes along, I'm filling in. You can read my own essays from last season here. Needless to say, spoilers ahead - so be careful!

Season premier - Alone - 9/25/07:

Last season ended with House losing or firing his three staff doctors. Each of them decided, in their own way, that the medical knowledge and experience they gained by working with House did not outweigh the personal cost they were incurred in terms of their psychological and ethical well-being.

More importantly, they felt themselves beginning to approximate House's own standards in disconcerting ways. They were each becoming more like House, and that's the last thing they wanted to happen. Given this situation, they chose to pursue other paths in the medical profession.

(quicky: the humorous subplot of Wilson's abduction of House's guitar was brilliant. Resuming:)

House, the title character, is now "going it alone" in this first episode of the season. And deny it as he may, he isn't doing very well. His self-sustained solipsism won't allow him to admit to Cuddy or Wilson that he misses his old team, to whom he had unknowingly become attached. More importantly to his medical decision-making process, he now lacks the balancing factors that used to be provided by his more altruistic staff. As a result, his cynicism about the young lady he is trying to treat receives no questioning and it takes him far longer to discover his mistake. He presumes the worse, and has no one around him to presume the best. The ultimate solution to the dilemma - a non-medical one, in this case - is beyond his impressive empirical ability.

The main ethical question in this premier episode of the fourth season is a continuation of the first season's primary theme: "everyone lies." House's primary insight into fallen human nature, however, serves him in good stead only when it operates within the backdrop of his support staff that can reply to him: "no one likes to lie; everyone prefers truth." House is a master of the counter-intuitive, especially when he can prove his ideology through medical facts. At the same time, he is often a slave to the medical findings, and when given a choice, he prefers a medical finding that condemns the patient's virtue rathen than trusting in human goodness.

The boyfriend, for his part, does a good job standing by his girlfriend. He does waver from time to time, but on the whole he trusts the intuitions he has gained from his relationship more than the accusations that House brings into the situation as the case progresses. The mother, on the other hand, is not nearly so trusting. And it's clear from the drama why she isn't: she's had a falling-out with her daughter and no longer knows her well enough to trust her character. Of course, one has to think that a husband probably would have had more confidence in his wife. The boyriend and mother are both, in some sense, guilty of not being close enough to the young women. Her death is somewhat caused by her isolation from a true human community. This fact is dramatically brought out when the audience learns the boyfriend misidentified his own girlfriend when he was trying to rescue her. Neither did her mother notice the mistake.

The final scenes of the medical drama are quite poetic, with the mother and boyfriend tragically discovering that in the midst of their distrust in their daughter/girlfriend, that she had in fact died in another part of the hospital - alone. And in an instance of "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away," simultaneously a previously-forgotten character is given back the girl he thought had died. That's good writing.

Second episode - The Right Stuff - 10/2/07

This episode is split between two overlapping narratives - House trying to hire a new team (and weeding-out the applicants "American Idol-style") and the medical drama of a future NASA pilot with a rare disease that involves her suffering from synesthesia.

I found the applicant review process very witty because it showcases House at his controlling, arbitrary best. His applicant pool is a microcosm of Darwinian selection, ruthless backstabbing and intellectual jousting. But while House does act "outrageously" at times, the general criterion for whether an applicant survives or gets the boot is again ... objective medical fact. Your best chance for success, in the end, is being right. Everything else is a matter of taste. And those with inferior knowledge (who are also less qualified for the job) are forced to compensate for that defect with verbal games and clever trickery (good lucks don't hurt either). I don't think it's too much to claim that this is how much of the world operates, generally speaking.

House does, I think, seriously compromise the best medical interest of his patient. For once he seems to respect his patient's autonomy - and I'm sure the $50k helped. His final defense for not turning her into the NASA medical authorities is I think defensible, but hardly prudent. But more on that soon.

I'm not sure what to make of Wilson's attempts to trick House into thinking he's having visions of his old team, as if that will somehow convince House that he misses his team and had, despite all his claims to the contrary, established a human connection with them. Frankly, I don't think more trickery will help. Reality, not manipulation, is what will get to House in the end. And after all, if it's a game, he'll win it. He's good at every puzzle except his own life.

Speaking of human attachment, House displays a rare moment of kindness at the end of the episode when he allows the older gentleman to stay on as his assistant - even though he is not a licensed doctor. Though House has do to it in his own way, he helps the man fulfill his dream of working with doctors. Similarly, in his encounter with Cameron, House cannot avoid the fact that his primary purpose in hiding the pilot's illness from NASA was his desire to preserve the young woman's dreams. Embarrassed as he may be, House finds fulfillment in good acts. He still tries his best to cover them up, and rationalize his motives as utilitarian and "rational", but there it is.

There's always hope, even for House. He can't help being human, and humans like acting well.

Creighton invites pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia speaker Anne Lamott

When I hear about a women who has vocally defended the practice of abortion in America (while agreeing that the fetus is a human life), and who admits in the LA Times to have personally assisted a friend commit suicide, my next thought is not "Wow, what a great person to have promote her views during a lecture on the topic of 'Women & Health' at a Catholic University!"

But then again, I don't work at the Center for Health Policy & Ethics at Jesuit-run Creighton University. And more's the pity. For shame, Creighton.

Update: Thanks to commentor Jeff Baker who provides more coverage as well as marching orders for those who wish to officially notify the involved parties at Creighton of their displeasure.