Knots and Strands: An Argument for Productive Disillusionment

Abstract

This article offers a contrast between European and US-American approaches to the convergence of enabling technologies and to associated issues. It identifies an apparently paradoxical situation in which regional differences produce conflicting claims to universality, each telling us what can and will happen to the benefit of humanity. Those who might mediate and negotiate these competing claims are themselves entangled in the various positions. A possible solution is offered, namely a universalizable strategy that aims to disentangle premature claims to unity and universality as in the case of the greater “efficiency” of nanomedicine. This is the strategy by which Science and Technologies Studies (STS) can analytically tease apart what it has helped produce and sustain in the first place. The virtues and limits of this strategy are briefly presented, deliberation and decision-making under conditions of productive disillusionment recommended.

Keywords:

• converging technologies
• disentangling entangled concepts
• European and US approaches to research and development
• nanotechnology
• Science and Technology Studies (STS)

Notes

1. A third definition was developed in Canada where the convergence is crafted in an expert roadmapping process that seeks to match emerging capabilities to defined fields of problems (Bouchard, 2003). A synthesis of the various approaches has been developed in Spain (Fontela, 2006).

2. Since the author of the present paper served as rapporteur for the European expert group and drafted the CTEKS report, he should leave to others the assessment of that report. As to the perceived need to “answer” the American NBIC-proposal, a German policy document must stand for others: “American visions are strongly oriented towards capabilities for optimizing the human being, and there is a danger that these visions diffuse into a Germany that lacks a developed science policy position of its own. Such a conception of the human being will find little acceptance in Germany. This might lead to a loss of the opportunities that can potentially arise from the convergence of advanced technologies. As an alternative to this, there must therefore be a broadly conceived public debate on a science policy which is compatible with the German mode of innovation and system of values and which clearly sets itself off from discussions in the United States” (Giesecke, 2004, compare European Commission, 2003).

3. I borrowed this second credo from a programmatic presentation by Josephine Green of Philips (at a September 2005 European Commission, Directorate Research conference on Key Technologies in Brussels). Green took it to express the favorable conditions for technical research and development in Europe.

4. The belief in a single trajectory of technical progress is underwritten by folk historiography such as simple extrapolations of “Moore's Law.” In contrast the second approach is grounded in history and social studies of technology, especially the microsociological studies of recent decades.

5. The European proposal was formulated in advance of the meeting: “Common shared principles for R&D in nanotechnology could be embodied in a voluntary framework (e.g. a “code of good conduct”) to bring the EU together with countries who are active in nanoscale research and share our commitments to its responsible development” (European Commission, 2004, p. 22). The response to the proposal is reflected in the report on the international dialogue:

Such a code of conduct could include: a commitment from institutional authorities to use public funds for R&D of nanotechnology in a manner that protects the integrity of mankind; the constitution of a high-level advisory board to give advice concerning among others, risk prevention; and a commitment to treat knowledge on the impacts of nanotechnology a public good and share this information. This language, however, led to questions about how to define human dignity and how to reconcile the desire to share information with intellectual property (IP) protection, and led to the suggestion that the international community needs a common nomenclature. (Meridian Institute, 2004, pp. 7f.)

6. Compare the following passage from the NBIC report:

In some areas of human life, old customs and ethics will persist, but it is difficult to predict which realms of action and experience these will be. Perhaps wholly new ethical principles will govern in areas of radical technological advance, such as the acceptance of brain implants, the role of robots in human society, and the ambiguity of death in an era of increasing experimentation with cloning. Human identity and dignity must be preserved. (Roco & Bainbridge, 2002, pp. 18f.)

Davis Baird comments on this passage that “[s]ome people are likely to be suspicious about how genuinely open NBIC is to ethical debate” (Baird, 2004). Jean-Pierre Dupuy paraphrases pointedly: “The major impediment is ethics, that is, our current ethics, conservative and overcautious. The report looks forward to a possible radical change in ethics, akin to a transformation of civilization, thanks to which ‘the acceptance of brain implants, the role of robots in human society, and the ambiguity of death’ will conform to new principles” (Dupuy, 2004, p. 134).

7. Implicit in the discussions of converging technologies is a similar difference of conception regarding human nature. Some define the human being in terms of its potential and aspirations. They suggest that nanotechnology will help humans overcome their current limitations and realize their potential. In contrast, the Enlightenment tradition conceives the human being as essentially imperfect and frail but nevertheless fully human (autonomous, rational) and therefore neither capable nor in need of “improvement.” This concerns, in particular, mortality as a defining moment of the human condition. Similarly, the following three assessments of sensor networks for environmental monitoring require analysis. The first response will stress the environmental benefits of the new technology that allows us to quickly diagnose environmental stresses and to take appropriate steps. The second response will highlight possible harm and ecological imbalance introduced by the nanoparticulate sensors themselves; it will view them as a potential hazard to environmental and human health. The third response will point to the danger of relying on a technological remedy rather than address underlying causes; in particular, it will express the worry that belief in an all-powerful technological fix will diminish our attitude of care toward the environment and encourage carefree, wasteful consumption. The shared commitment to sustainability and environmental protection is thus accompanied by a fundamental difference of sensibilities. While this difference has to be made explicit, the misleading appearance of an “either-or” might also be diffused. Perhaps, the best way to adopt or appropriate such sensor networks is by acknowledging and acting upon all three points.

8. The so-called Center for Responsible Nanotechnology complains, for example, that the report on nanotechnology by the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering (2004) does not include visions of molecular manufacturing. More recently, a report on risk governance set out to fuse the different temporal “frames” (Renn & Roco, 2006; compare Renn 2005).

9. Accordingly, the following is an implicit argument for the notion that a methodological, philosophical, sociological understanding of nanoscience and converging technologies prepares the ground for ethical and societal deliberations. Compare also note 4 above. This is reflected in the fairly large number of Science Studies scholars who have been involved from the beginning in discussions of societal implications of nanotechnology (as opposed to the preponderance of applied ethicists in debates of biomedical technologies): Davis Baird and collaborators in the United States (the first NSF-funded research group on philosophical and societal dimensions of nanotechnology), Arie Rip and collaborators in the Netherlands, Brian Wynne and collaborators in the UK, Hans Glimell and Sven Ove Hansson and each of their collaborators in Sweden, Jean-Pierre Dupuy and Alexei Grinbaum in France, Joachim Schummer, myself, and others in Germany, etc. The recognition of the importance of Science Studies also speaks through the following appeal by Mihail Roco:

An appeal is made to […] initiate societal implications studies from the beginning of the nanotechnology programs, and to communicate effectively the goals and potential risks with research users and public. By this message, we try to encourage various research and funding communities to raise the recognition of research on societal implications to the level of scientific and engineering topics as agents of change, and involve social scientists and economists in R&D groups. (Roco, 2003, p. 189)

10. David Berube's book on “nanohype” can be read as telling the background stories on this (Berube, 2005).

11. To be sure, Sokal did not plead for a naive trust of science and technology but allowed for a critical, scientifically informed stance also toward the institutions and practice of science.

12. Such questions are subject of a research group at Bielefeld University's Center for interdisciplinary Studies (ZiF) in 2006–2007. Looking at “Science in the Context of Application” it asks questions about control vs. understanding in simulations, about the robustness of knowledge claims that are validated by interested actors, etc.

13. Joachim Schummer (2005) has raised the issue of distributive justice in research funding. Though the difficulty of such a task is universally acknowledged, this difficulty does not justify or explain the absence of debate on the subject.

14. This is not the place to review the various strategies that have been proposed and that are being practiced. George Khushf and Davis Baird pursue a strategy of “constructive engagement,” Joachim Schummer recommends the role of “neutral mediator,” and Mickey Gjerris maintains as a minimal standard for any real conversation between science and its publics that among possible outcomes is a resounding “no” to any proposed nanotechnology. Of course, these three strategies and the one proposed in this paper by no means exhaust all the possibilities.

15. A European report on benefits and risks of nanotechnology provides one example of how these notions become entangled:

The patient will benefit from this ‘near patient’ [Lab-on-a-Chip] diagnostic through an optimised therapy with fewer drug side effects. A targeted or personalized medicine reduces the drug consumption and treatment expenses resulting in an overall societal benefit by reducing the costs to the public health systems. […] The overall drug consumption and side-effects can be lowered significantly by depositing the active agent in the morbid region only and in no higher dose than needed. This highly selective approach reduces costs and human suffering. (Nanoforum, 2004, 19f.)

16. For a somewhat more detailed presentation of this example see Nordmann, (2007).

17. The skepticism is underwritten by Jan Schmidt's critical analysis of the systems-theoretic claims in the report on NBIC-convergence. Instead of a radically new conception of integrated research he finds that behind these claims lurks a variant of the traditional reductionist program for the unification of the sciences (Schmidt, 2004).

18. Of course, some refer to the “digital revolution” as an example of a radical transformation of leisure, work, and social relations. This was not, however, a revolution. As fast as digital technologies developed, they were appropriated and contained within existing technical, regulatory, and conceptual schemes that resisted immediate transformation and slowed down the pace of change, allowing for users to modify trajectories of development and to ultimately define the various information and communication technologies.

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