The morality of attitudes toward nanotechnology : about God, techno-scientific progress, and interfering with nature

Vandermoere, Frédéric; Blanchemanche, Sandrine; Bieberstein, Andrea; Marette, Stephan; Roosen, Jutta

doi:10.1007/S11051-009-9809-5

Title

The morality of attitudes toward nanotechnology : about God, techno-scientific progress, and interfering with nature

Author

Vandermoere, Frédéric

Blanchemanche, Sandrine

Bieberstein, Andrea

Marette, Stephan

Roosen, Jutta

Abstract

Using survey data, we examine public attitudes toward and awareness of nanotechnology in Germany (N = 750). First, it is shown that a majority of the people are still not familiar with nanotechnology. In addition, diffusion of information about nanotechnology thus far mostly seems to reach men and people with a relative higher educational background. Also, pro-science and technology views are positively related with nanotech familiarity. Results further show that a majority of the people have an indifferent, ambiguous, or non-attitude toward nanotechnology. Multinomial logit analyses further reveal that nanotech familiarity is positively related with peoples attitudes. In addition, it is shown that traditional religiosity is unrelated to attitudes and that individual religiosity is weakly related to nanotechnology attitudes. However, moral covariates other than religiosity seem of major importance. In particular, our results show that more negative views on technological and scientific progress as well as more holistic views about the relation between people and the environment increase the likelihood of having a negative attitude toward nanotechnology.

Language

English

Source (journal)

Journal of nanoparticle research. - London, 1999, currens

Publication

London : 2010

ISSN

1388-0764 [print]

1572-896X [online]

DOI

10.1007/S11051-009-9809-5

Volume/pages