Religious countries shun nanotechnology
An interesting study out this week on the effect of religiosity on views of nanotechnology.
Not surprisingly the study found that very religious people generally had a negative view of nanotechnology -- even if they aren't sure what the term means or how it's being used.
But this bit from the BBC piece jumped out at me:
The researchers compared attitudes to nanotechnology in 12 European countries and the US.
They then rated each country on a scale of what they called "religiosity" - a measure of how religious each country was.
They found that countries where religious belief was strong, such as Ireland and Italy, tended to be the least accepting of nanotechnology, whereas those where religion was less significant such as Belgium or the Netherlands were more accepting of the technology.
Professor Dietram Scheufele from the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin, who led the research, said religious belief exerted a strong influence on how people viewed nanotechnology.
"Religion provides a perceptual filter, highly religious people look at information differently, it follows from the way religion provides guidance in people's everyday lives," he said.
The US was found to be the most religious country in the survey, and also the least accepting of nanotechnology.
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The U.S. was the most religious country in the survey? More religious than Italy or Ireland? More religious than Spain or Portugal?
Catholicism -- and its struggle against science -- ain't what it used to be.
Comments (7)
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Why is it surprising that the U.S. was the most religious country in the survey? American religiosity has been confirmed by survey data again and again. In contrast, countries that have histories of state-sanctioned churches (I'm looking at you, Europe!) exhibit much lower levels of grassroots religious observance and belief.
Because of this, I've often wondered why some Protestant Christians are so intent on trying to make Christianity a more formal component of government, when the evidence pretty clearly implies that nothing would be a surer way to kill religion in America.
Posted on December 9, 2008 5:09 PM
As for attitudes toward nanotechnology, I guess we shouldn't be surprised given Americans' attitudes toward science in general. It's not the Catholic Church that's responsible for so many Americans believing in pseudo-scientific hokum like creationism and "intelligent design."
Posted on December 9, 2008 5:13 PM
Didn't JPII issue a bull declaring that scientifically proven theories and faith cannot be at odds, period? If the science shows the Church is definitively in error about REALITY (not ethics, morals, etc.), the Chrurch, he said had thwe obligation to reconsider and even change its stances.
Posted on December 11, 2008 6:39 PM
Didn't JPII issue a bull declaring that scientifically proven theories and faith cannot be at odds, period? If the science shows the Church is definitively in error about REALITY (not ethics, morals, etc.), the Chrurch, he said had thwe obligation to reconsider and even change its stances.
Posted on December 11, 2008 6:39 PM
The Catholic attitude toward science is more ambiguous and less consistently hostile than Mr. Killian implies. Copernicus, for example, dedicated his book to the reigning pope of the time, and nobody much objected to it until decades later, in Galileo's time. His status as martyr of freethought is also exaggerated, and was caused as much by his arrogance as by the church's narrowness.
John Paul II did say that evolution was more than a theory, and that Catholics were free to accept it without censure.
Posted on December 12, 2008 9:18 PM
I wonder why it is that religious people tend to oppose nanotechnology more than non-religious? That would be akin to finding that they opposed the use of computers over, say, adding machines and chalkboards. At a conceptual level, nanotechnology is just another set of tools for manipulating the world around us. Why should it be a religious issue?
Posted on December 15, 2008 7:13 AM
While not all religious people oppose scientific innovation, it does seem as if conservative Christians often lead the pack. Weren't they the ones who opposed anaesthetic on the grounds that God wanted us to suffer in this vale of tears? It is true that many of the founders of modern science were Christians, they weren't always the ultra-orthodox kind that fundamentalists would have us believe. Isaac Newton, for example, believed in alchemy, but not in the Trinity.
Posted on January 3, 2009 10:16 PM