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The Politicization of Science and Technology: Its Implications for Nanotechnology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Fabrice Jotterand
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Extract

Nanotechnology represents, in part, a technological revolution in the sense that it allows highly innovative applications of various areas of the physical and life sciences. The development of nanotechnology and nanoscience, however, intensifies challenges to the traditional understanding of how to pursue scientific and technological knowledge. Science (in its broad meaning) can no longer be construed simply as the ideal of the quest for truth (i.e., “pure science”). Science, through its technological applications, has become the source of economic power and, by extension, political power. Science, with its political implications, has entered what John Ziman calls the era of “post-academic science.”

In this paper, I argue that nanotechnology is a cardinal exemplar of this politicization, that is, the convergence of science, technology, politics, and economics for social and governmental purposes. At the same time, I assert that this new scientific ethos offers the possibility of a better integration of ethical and philosophical reflections at the core of scientific and technological development.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , Winter 2006 , pp. 658 - 666
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2006

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