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Nanotechnology and Society?
VoiceOfZule writes "Bringing advanced sci-tech and humanities grad students to teach undergrads about nanotech and its implications is a great idea. I was in this class on Nanotechnology and Society at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this spring, and a lot of the course materials were just put online along with a preprint paper about the new course, and some of the student research projects. The class was a lot of fun (some nano, some scitech studies, some scifi/future stuff), I learned a lot (about the reality of nanotech and its societal implications beyond the B.S. hype out there), and the world of nano now seems like a good career path to me. Are similar experiences going on across the country? In light of recent worries concerning science and engineering in the US, I hope so."
I hope there was very little homework....
This section of the syllabus seems to capture what the course is about the most concisely.
to consider the societal implications of nanotech in the context of social, scientific, historical, political, environmental, philosophical, ethical, and cultural ideas applied from other fields and prior work;
My question: How is this different from any other major technological advance? For goodness sake, there were backlashes against the railroad, against the first steam engines. More recently we have backlashes against cloning, and nuclear power.
Every time we run into some topic like this, we have a very polarized debate. In practice, society adapts to the change and goes on with life. Ultimately, the market decides which innovations become wide spread, and how they are implemented.
My impression from the syllabus: fluff class looking to cash in on a hot button topic.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
The course also explored the possible environmental effects of nanotechnology, and the possible regulation that might help manage those effects. When dealing with one class of nanotech, like fullerenes, this is quite a broad and complex topic. When on introduces the everything that might be nanotech, it becomes nearly unmanageable.
Another project that has some popularity is the nanokids.
There is actually quite a bit from the course that can be used in any number of high school courses. And, since Nanotech is likely to tbe defining technology of the next generation, kids who are familiar with the concepts are going to be better prepared than those who are not.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I'd be interested in hearing what the course covered with respect to environmental, health and safety issues around nanomaterials. While these new materials bring interesting properties, they could also present some interesting, unexpected health hazards.
By virtue of their size, nanoparticles can cross the blood/brain barrier. For some materials this new route of entry could be the difference between toxic and nontoxic. Materials that previously were thought of as nontoxic in the micron and above particle range could now have toxic effects. - Material data safety sheets generally don't consider a material's particle size, except to state "dusty" type warnings.
That the nanoparticles can have this new route of entry is proven - that this results in new toxic effects for previously nontoxic compounds is not (at least not that I've seen in the lit) - so there may be no issue - or there may be a big issue. Hopefully we don't find out the asbestos way where we make the material ubiquitous then be stuck with huge remediation and civil lawsuit issues!
Politics 101,
Nonotech is a compettitive threat to a LOT of entrenched industries who have cozy monopolies. So you can better believe that there will be strong push to "regulate" it for peoples "safety" and the "protection" of society.
The inportant thing to understand is that there are two types of laws. Ones that seek justice by punishing people who make bad choices, and ones that try to "prevent" problems by limiting the kinds of choices people are "allowed" to have. It should always be understood that the former is usually good and the latter is almost always BS, and causes more harm than it "prevents".
This class represents everything that is wrong with modern college education. Some poor physics teacher is stuck spending hisr time giving "Science and Society" classes to students seeking an easy A to fulfill their core science requirements. What ever happened to teaching real science classes involving math and physics, instead of "soft science" classes involving primarily politics and social issues?
If you read the article you might notice this is a social studies course, not a science course. I suppose you also think that requiring a certain number of humanities courses to earn a bachelor of science from a 4 year college is useless too?
That's all we need, a buch of highly trained but out of touch scientists. Next thing you know we'll be fending off nano-sharks with tiny little laser beams.
"Nano" is getting redundant, because most technical fields have an interest in getting to smaller and smaller scales. Whether it's electronics or chemistry, things are going nano. It's not like you can major in nanotechnology alone and expect to handle anything in the nanoscale. Realistically, you have to choose a field of concentration.