Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pftt2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-30T17:07:56.126Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cognitive Barriers in Perception of Nanotechnology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Alexei Grinbaum
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A number of recent reports and overviews on the ethical and societal problems of nanotechnology present a public that is polarized about nanotechnology. Very little responsible analysis can be found between those poles for two reasons. First, the debate about the highly controversial notion of molecular manufacturing introduced by Eric Drexler shaped much of the early discussion. Second, the polarization can be seen as a consequence of uncertainty about nanotechnology compounded by cognitive barriers. A reporter to UNESCO acknowledges that “…Assessments of nanotechnology tend to radically diverge…These radically diverging assessments that have thus far dominated the debate on nanotechnology seem to be due to a lack of common ground.” The “lack of common ground” is not unprecedented in the history of technology, and scientists rightfully fear a new “GMO debacle.”

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , Winter 2006 , pp. 689 - 694
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Drexler, K. E., Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation (New York: John Wiley, 1992). Drexler, K. E., Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (New York: Anchor Books, 1986). See also the Drexler-Smalley, debate in Cenear 81, no. 48 (2003): 37–42.Google Scholar
Gordijn, B. “Nanoethics,” paper presented at the Third session of COMEST, UNESCO, December 2003.Google Scholar
See Common Ground magazine, dedicated to ethical issues in health and ecology and published since 1982.Google Scholar
Expressions of this fear are many. E.g., at Nano4Food conference (University of Wageningen, 2005) one of the key questions was, “How do we avoid another GMO debacle in bringing nanoscale enhancements to food processing?” See also Day, G. S. and Schoemaker, P. J. H., Peripheral Vision: Detecting the Weak Signals that Will Make or Break Your Company (Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press, 2006).Google Scholar
BMRB Social Research, Nanotechnology: Views of the General Public, Study prepared for the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering Nanotechnology Working Group, January 2004.Google Scholar
Cordis website,Documentary Films and Brochure, available at <http://www.cordis.lu/nanotechnology/src/pressroom_films.htm> (last visited September 26, 2006).+(last+visited+September+26,+2006).>Google Scholar
Savage, L., “The Theory of Statistical Decision,” Journal of the American Statistical Association 46 (1951): 55–67. Savage, L., Foundations of Statistics (John Wiley, New York, 1954).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allais, M., “Le Comportement de l'homme Rationnel Devant le Risque, Critique des Postulats et Axiomes de l'école Américaine,” Econometrica 21 (1953): 503–546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellsberg, D., “Risk, Ambiguity and the Savage Axioms,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 75 (1961): 643–669. For further reading, see Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A., eds., Choices, Values, and Frames (Cambridge University Press, 2000).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drexler, K. E., Engines, supra note 1, at chapter 4. See also: Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies: Opportunities and Uncertainties (London: The Royal Society & The Royal Academy of Engineering, 2004): Chapter 6.Google Scholar
An example of this with regard to climatic change is further discussed in Dupuy, J. P. and Grinbaum, A. “Living with Uncertainty: From the Precautionary Principle to the Methodology of Ongoing Normative Assessment,” C. R. Geosciences 337, no. 4 (2005): 457–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D., “Availability: A Heuristic for Judging Frequency and Probability,” Cognitive Psychology 5 (1973): 207–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grinbaum, A. and Dupuy, J. P., “Living with Uncertainty: Toward the Ongoing Normative Assessment of Nanotechnology,” Techné 8, no. 2 (2004): 4–25.Google Scholar
Supra note 5.Google Scholar