Monday, March 17, 2008
God and Nanotech?
A NYTimes column wonders, as a review of a Nature article, about the relative silence of religious leaders with regards to nanotechnology.
For one it is assumed that religious types will never understand the complexities of nanotech and will therefore, based on one area, take a dim view of the whole thing. There are undoubtedly those in the religious community that will take such a stance, but are they the majority?
Secondly is the presumption of debate, or fight, between science and religion.
See, I think there is a whole different way to approach this thing. Science and religion are not constituencies seeking political power. They should be areas of thought that compliment each other and increase understanding. The simple fact is that nanotech, like so many other technological advances are not problematic of themselves, but rather that some applications thereof are considered unethical by some religious thought.
The operation of a society demands a common ethic. Chaos will result without it. Traditionally, the common ethic of our nation has its roots in religion, and despite efforts to change that it remains true to this day. Therefore, the real question here is to wonder how to bring the common societal ethic to bear on nanotech investigation.
I would suggest the best way is to create ethical nanotechnologists. Some of those ethical nanotechnologists will have their ethics rooted in religion, and some undobtedly will not. But they will work together to create the appropriate ethics for the circumstance, just as we as a greater society have.
The key here, however, is to somehow create a space where nanotechnologists can come to faith and the ethics that result therefrom.
And this means we have to do away with the perception of hostility between science and religion. I think the best place to start is for the religious to stop condemning and start understanding. Learn and encourage rather than simply denounce.
It is too easy to play on the fears of a group to capture that group and have a congregations of sorts. Why don;t we challenge our congregants and ourselves. There is plenty to be concerned about, but lets approach it rationally and with understanding.
Not unlike the missionaries that tried to teach the "natives" the "right" way to have sex, we need to start with where people are and work from there. We'll get a lot farther.
Technorati Tags:religion, science, nanotech
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There may not be a lot of agreement among the world’s religions on exactly what constitutes humans “playing God,” but you never hear a preacher or rabbi suggesting such behavior is wise or laudable. So you would think they might have a lot to say about nanotechnology. After all, nanotech involves rearranging not just DNA and the other building blocks of life — already a source of controversy in biotechnology — but the very atoms and molecules that make up all matter. If that is not messing around in God’s closet, what is?And apparently where they are speaking up, the author thinks they are looking in the wrong place.
Mr. Toumey says that such a longterm view is “an unnecessarily troublesome” way to look at nanotechnology. He says it is likely to trap religious voices in stances where they are “systematically hostile to a very broad technology.” He frets that focusing on transhumanism might lead organized religious to oppose the near term use of nanotechnology in positive ways, like creating better ways to deliver drugs into diseased cells.There are several factors at play here.
For one it is assumed that religious types will never understand the complexities of nanotech and will therefore, based on one area, take a dim view of the whole thing. There are undoubtedly those in the religious community that will take such a stance, but are they the majority?
Secondly is the presumption of debate, or fight, between science and religion.
See, I think there is a whole different way to approach this thing. Science and religion are not constituencies seeking political power. They should be areas of thought that compliment each other and increase understanding. The simple fact is that nanotech, like so many other technological advances are not problematic of themselves, but rather that some applications thereof are considered unethical by some religious thought.
The operation of a society demands a common ethic. Chaos will result without it. Traditionally, the common ethic of our nation has its roots in religion, and despite efforts to change that it remains true to this day. Therefore, the real question here is to wonder how to bring the common societal ethic to bear on nanotech investigation.
I would suggest the best way is to create ethical nanotechnologists. Some of those ethical nanotechnologists will have their ethics rooted in religion, and some undobtedly will not. But they will work together to create the appropriate ethics for the circumstance, just as we as a greater society have.
The key here, however, is to somehow create a space where nanotechnologists can come to faith and the ethics that result therefrom.
And this means we have to do away with the perception of hostility between science and religion. I think the best place to start is for the religious to stop condemning and start understanding. Learn and encourage rather than simply denounce.
It is too easy to play on the fears of a group to capture that group and have a congregations of sorts. Why don;t we challenge our congregants and ourselves. There is plenty to be concerned about, but lets approach it rationally and with understanding.
Not unlike the missionaries that tried to teach the "natives" the "right" way to have sex, we need to start with where people are and work from there. We'll get a lot farther.
Technorati Tags:religion, science, nanotech
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