Artist rendition of nanobot assisting in reproduction.
As I highlighted last week, in the latest issue of Nature Nanotechnology my colleague Dietram Scheufele is the lead author on a survey analysis that finds that experts are more concerned about the health and environmental risks of nanotech than the public at large.
In the editorial to the issue, Nature Nanotech editor Peter Rodgers emphasizes the importance of turning to communication researchers for help in engaging the public on the many technical, social, and political dimensions of nanotech.
He specifically cites our Policy Forum article at Science and discusses the need to actively frame messages on nanotech in ways that connect to diverse publics. In advocating this new paradigm in public outreach, he joins the editors at the Biosciences and The Scientist in noting how important research on framing can be to effective public communication. As Rogers writes:
...nanoscientists and technologists should look to social scientists for more than just data on
these questions -- help from 'outside' is also needed to communicate effectively with the public.......These and other results emphasize the difficulty of making sure there is not a
public backlash against nanotechnology --there is no guarantee that the communication approaches that work for men in the US, for instance, will work for women in the US, let alone for anyone else in the world. One size certainly does not fit all.Given the complexity of this challenge it can be helpful to think in terms of 'frames' or 'perceptual filters' when trying to communicate with the public[citation]. The basic idea of this approach is that most people are overloaded with information and not that interested in the details of nanotechnology or any other technology, so they use frames or filters -- such as their political or religious beliefs -- to process all this information and what it means for them...
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That picture is a pretty perfect example of how deluded people are about nanotechnology, and is completely unhelpful in addressing the real problems with the technology.
Nanotech, especially as it is currently implemented, has little to do with robotics, machines etc., but the surprising behavior of nanoscale polymers and small synthesized compounds. We are creating materials without any regard for how they will interact with the natural environment, without any regard for whether or not they can biodegrade or cause unknown toxicity to the environment, and people's perception of these things is still miniature robots. This is good example of how PR like that picture above completely misinforms the public about potential dangers of a new industry.
As far as I'm concerned their should be a good healthy backlash against the technology until concerns like these are adequately addressed. And instead of showing us pictures of miniature sperm-carrying robots maybe we could see a diagram explaining the natural breakdown of carbon fibers or their plans to recover these materials for proper disposal.
Mark,
Exactly why I posted the picture. This picture and the one on my earlier post are among the top hits when you google image "nanotechnology." It's representations like these that capture the public imagination but also start to trigger underlying frames of reference that are potentially problematic for public understanding.
--Matt
The great irony is that the best nanomachine in that picture is the sperm itself. I ultimately think that biology will inform molecular machines far more than materials engineering. Nature has been working on the problem for over a billion years, why repeat her work? Adapt it!
I was going to comment on the unlikeliness of the picture as well.
Speaking as a scientifically educated person with little real knowledge of nanotech (yet more than your man in the street), I wonder if the reasons the public are not yet thinking about the dangers of nanotech are:
1) They think it is decades in teh future.
2) they saw it on Star Trek and it all turned out fine.
3) it is beyond their comprehension (how long did it take to convince people that smoking was bad for them?)
4) The view of it being lots of little robots encourages this, since that is an idea safely in the future and also we control robots. Whereas nanoparticles are in reality a lot harder to control.
Given the complexity of this challenge it can be helpful to think in terms of 'frames' or 'perceptual filters' when trying to communicate with the public[citation]. The basic idea of this approach is that most people are overloaded with information and not that interested in the details of nanotechnology or any other technology, so they use frames or filters -- such as their political or religious beliefs -- to process all this information and what it means for them...
I have a science and Public Relations background. I agree about people being overloaded. It seems that it behooves the one trying to communicate to take every possible step to find out the idiosyncrasies of the various dialects they are talking to and try to custom design the message to reach the greatest majority of listeners. Not always an easy job! But a good goal to reach for!
Dave Briggs :~)