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Nanotechnology and Societal Transformation

from the preparing-for-the-future dept.
A paper on "Nanotechnology and Societal Transformation" by Michael M. Crow and Daniel Sarewitz appears on the Center for Science, Policy, and Outcomes (CSPO) website. The authors conclude:
"Should nanoscience and nanotechnology yield even a small proportion of their anticipated advances, the impacts on society will be far-reaching and profound . . . We can allow these transformations to surprise and overwhelm us, and perhaps even threaten the prospects for further progress. Or we can choose to be smart about preparing for, understanding, responding to, and even managing the coming changes, in order to enhance the benefits, and reduce the disruption and dislocation, that must accompany any revolution."

The paper was presented at the workshop on the Societal Implications of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology sponsored by the U.S. National Science and Technology Councilís Subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology (NSET) in September 2000.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 25th, 2001 at 11:02 AM and is filed under Found On Web, New Institutions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Nanotechnology and Societal Transformation”

  1. chip Says:
    June 25th, 2001 at 11:07 PM

    Worth reading

    This was an interesting paper. The authors represent a point of view that will, I think, be increasingly making itself heard in the coming years. Though these particular folks do seem to suffer to a significant degree from the same kind of epistemological dysfunction that afflicts so many on the left, they also seem like people with whom one might be able to have an intelligent conversation about the issues the paper discusses (in sharp contrast to many in that camp who I encounter from time to time).

  2. mysticaloldbard Says:
    June 26th, 2001 at 5:16 PM

    Re:Worth reading

    Which kind of epistemological dysfunction that afflicts so many on the left?

  3. chip Says:
    June 26th, 2001 at 7:34 PM

    Re:Worth reading

    That's actually an interesting question, if it doesn't take us too far off topic. Let me see if I can answer it while trying to avoid getting tangled up in specific arguments with their ideological beliefs or value judgements. A partial list of the things that caught my attention:

    • The belief that it is possible to foresee the specific consequences of particular policies or technological developments. Though they do address this concern directly — one the things that makes me think they're worth talking to — they still fall into the trap of advocating forecasting (which they call "technology assessment") where such forecasting is not truly possible, even in principle.
    • Use of the social "we" as if society were a purposeful entity with specific goals (coupled generally with the unspoken assumption that government policy is the means by which society pursues these goals).
    • A general blindness to the degree to which the participants in an assessment or forecasting exercise (especially one whose results will be used to guide the actions of the government in the areas of regulation or funding) can usually be depended on to behave as self-interested actors rather than as dispassionate analysts. In particular, institutions are proposed which attempt to respond to self-interested behavior in other contexts without recognition that these institutions themselves will be subject to the same kinds of human behavior.
    • A tendency to presume that certain objectives or concerns are generally agreed upon (by their readers or by the world at large) as key issues (in this case, for example, "sustainability", "global climate change", "social equity"), without questioning whether concern with those issues is as universal as they presume, or indeed whether these issues may themselves be of arguable relevance because of precisely the phenomena (the effects of technological progress) under discussion.

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