Nanotechnology and religion
By Jason Major
TechNyou
It is no longer a revelation that for religious people, their religion can have a large influence on their perceptions and acceptance of emerging technologies. This has been shown in a number of studies to date, and their analysis also reflects what I have also talked on about in previous posts: that much of our perception and acceptance or otherwise of emerging technologies is influenced by personal values. Knowledge about the science or technology has relatively minimal influence.
Chris Toumey, a cultural anthropologist in the University of South Carolina NanoCenter, has done a new study that examines actual religious commentaries about nanotechnology from a variety of faiths. Toumey assembled a collection of seven religious reactions to nanotechnology from a variety of faiths.
His paper (Seven religious reactions to nanotechnology) will be published in the December issue of NanoEthics. Unfortunately, access to the full paper is unavailable at the moment, so I only have his short version for Nanowerk to go on.
On the slippery slope to transhumanism
One of the themes that came out of his research was many religious persons worry that nanotechnology will contribute to re-defining human nature in ways that are amoral or dangerous. This is a sense that transhumanist values are the enemy of religious values, and that nanotechnology, especially nanomedicine, is implicated in a transhumanist agenda.
Indeed, six of the seven religious reactions included a concern that nanotech will contribute to changing our sense of what it means to be human, and that this is clearly undesirable.
If I can play the devil’s advocate here, what if part of being human is the need to constantly improve ourselves? That is, the desire for transhumanism is being human. For instance, think about how much money we spend on plastic surgery, face lifts, drugs to make us stronger, or more mentally alert. Should it ever become possible and available, I bet there will be a queue of people lining up to get cognitive enhancements, or some therapy that will turn them from the 10 stone woos to the muscly, athletic dude prancing around the beach in their budgie smugglers.
One only has to look at previous human cloning claims, closely followed by the large number of people requesting to have various dead family members or themselves cloned.
A second question posed by Toumey is whether nanotechnology has a purpose, a set of its own values that are different from transhumanism?. Personally, I don’t think the manufacturer of the stain-free nano clothing is thinking anything other than the purpose of nano is to give me a marketing edge in the clothing market. He is not considering whether his technology will be somehow used in the field of transhumanism. The Biomedical specialist, however, trying to work on gene therapy techniques to treat Parkinson’s Alzhiemers or rebuild muscles in those with muscular dystrophy is more likely to be considering how their advances in knowledge might be used for other purposes, for example enhancing cognitive function or muscle building in disease-free people.
For a bit of an insight into the ethics of bioengineering our brain check the following TedX talk
No right or wrong
Australia’s religious views are not the same as those in the US, so I suspect our judgements on emerging technologies would be more secular than in the US, but still with a heavy emphasis on personal values and natural biases. Regardless of the root of those values, I agree with Toumey that if we are to have any debate on the use of these technologies move forward, policy makers, scientists, industry and society in general need to consider these values, possibly even embrace some of them.