Understanding public opinion of nanotechnology

Abstract

A common refrain among scientists, policymakers, academics, and even consumer advocacy groups is that the public is simply too uninformed about, disinterested in, or otherwise afraid of groundbreaking emerging sciences like nanotechnology. Scapegoats for these problems abound, with blame placed alternately on a fickle media culture that emphasizes sensation over substance, the decline of science sections in newspapers, the use of nanotechnology as a narrative device in science fiction stories, or else simply the decline and stagnation of scientific literacy in the USA. But to what extent do these explanations hold up to empirical scrutiny? To what extent do they help us gain a better understanding of opinion formation about nanotechnology as opposed to distracting us from other important questions of public opinion? This chapter tackles these questions by evaluating empirical data on public opinion of nanotechnology from the past decade.