Religious Fears and Nanotech

To many people in the U.S. and Europe, “nanotechnology” is understood in rather abstract or loosely defined terms – if the word is known at all.

About 30-percent of people in the developed world have at least a passing familiarity with the term, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, in collaboration with Pennsylvania State University and Cornell University. To about two-thirds of these people, however, nanotechnology is only recognized as a vague symbol for looming technological innovations, possessing new – and perhaps even bizarre – consequences.

Given the explosive impact nanotechnology promises to have on industry and society, it’s shocking how unaware people are,” said Nigel Cameron, director of the Center of Nanotechnology and Society at Chicago’s Kent College. “And many who are aware, are afraid.”

Although the relatively low awareness of nanotechnology is fairly consistent across the U.S. and Europe, there is one striking difference between these two regions, said Dietram Scheufele, principle investigator of the study and University of Wisconsin professor of life sciences, communication and journalism.

“More Americans fear the consequences of nanotechnology,” he said.

The survey, which is currently under peer review, shows that only 29-percent of Americans believe nanotechnology is morally acceptable. In the United Kingdom, this number is 54 percent; while in Germany and France, 62 and 72-percent of the survey’s respondents had no moral objections to nanotechnology, respectively. All of the survey’s respondents either already considered themselves informed regarding nanotechnology or were educated through a series of 10 telephone calls.

With a margin of error at only 3 percent, this drastic disparity requires some sort of explanation, Scheufele said.

“We found that people in the U.S. have attitudes about nanotechnology similar to other countries with high levels of religiosity,” he said.

Scheufele’s survey charted people’s relative levels of religious faith and their moral beliefs regarding nanotechnology. It revealed an inverse relationship between a self-assessed importance of God in the respondent’s lives and their belief in the moral acceptability of nanotechnology.

“More aware people tended to be the ones who possessed less fear of nanotechnology,” he said. “But the key to how the public at large will understand nanotechnology has to do with what the first big applications are.”

To this point, many of the public’s first impressions of nanotechnology have been bundled with other contentious moral issues, such as stem cell research and transhumanism, Cameron said.

Since 2001, hundreds of scientific papers have been published regarding the issue of enhancing human performance through nanotechnology, ranging from new nanotechnology-based drugs to actual brain implants.

“This has created a lot of sci-fi, sort of naive talk,” he said. “But it’s terrifying if you’re an investor.”

The fears surrounding nanotechnology have played a role in a general lack of public involvement in the issue, said Julia Moore, deputy director for the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. But educating people is going to take a lot of time and the government is wary of what the public will think, she said.

“Most nanomaterials will be proven to be safe,” she said. “But there are still lots of environmental and human health risks that need to be assessed. And they demand public policies now not in existence.”

Since the definition of nanotechnology is so general – potentially including virtually all fields of applied science – it has evaded federal policy as well as accurate public understanding, Cameron said.

“What we need is a far more coherent discussion on the federal level,” he said. “People want to fund the science and move forward. But until we know how the public is going to react, people are reluctant.”

More information: The Nanomaterials Characterization Facility
Dietram Scheufele