Understanding Publics of Science

In recent weeks, Britain’s Better Regulation Task Force report on scientific research regulation asked the Government to evaluate the risks associated with the development of Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies. The Government was also asked to prove its implementation of a specific policy to protect human, animal and environmental safety, were it to be threatened by the development of this emerging field of knowledge. These requests may sound rather alarming. However, objectively speaking, the precautionary attitude of the Better Regulation Task Force does not differ greatly from that of the U.S. Congress and National Science Foundation, which, in 2001, placed the study of ethical, economic, legal and social implications of Nanotechnologies among the five great objectives of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. This initiative, i.e. the Nanoscience and Nanotechnology development programme, was financed by the U.S. federal government with a grant of over 500 million dollars and includes specific training schemes for researchers and other field experts. Nanoscience belongs to the future. It will apparently lead to significant theoretical and practical results only in five, ten or even twenty years’ time. Nanotechnologies are, therefore, still a world in the making. Why then is the scientific community already concerned – or is forced to be concerned ? about their social effects? Why are the worries of the scientific and non-scientific communities so important as to influence the development of this new field of research with “specific policies” and substantial funding?

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