Recent surveys indicate that religious beliefs will be very influential in shaping lay public reactions to nanotechnology in the U.S.; in fact religious beliefs will be more influential than scientific knowledge about nanotechnology. Unfortunately, there is very little information currently available about religious reactions to nanotechnology. This project will convene a series of Dialogue Seminars on nanotechnology at a group of local faith communities. In these seminars, members of the faith communities will receive information about nanotech, and then will react to that information within religious settings. Interviews and surveys will capture these religious reactions to nanotechnology so that this form of lay public thinking about science and technology can be better compared with other work on public understandings.
", explored an insight that arose from survey research. When the public devotes attention to nanotechnology, public reactions to nanotech are likely to be strongly influenced by religious beliefs. Scientific knowledge about nanotech will have little influence. In a variation of this insight, people who are more religious than others will be less favorable to nanotechnology. Those findings describe religious belief in general. This project investigated two different Christian denominations, Lutheran and Baptist, because we know that different faith communities have different beliefs about what is true, what is important, and so on. In addition, the Baptist congregations that participated in this project included White and Black Baptists, so that we might be able to detect differences that reflect racial variation. Two principal findings are prominent. First, theological differences between Lutheran and Baptist endure even into a topic as esoteric as nanotechnology. Secondly, in lieu of rich knowledge about nanotech, religious people use their earlier sentiments about biotechnology as a template for thinking about nanotechnology. One consequence of this work is that the project director (Dr. Chris Toumey) is seeking ways to broaden the study of religion and technology: to pursue the work of this study by recruiting a greater variety of faith communities, and to create more ways for religious people to engage with new technologies. A second consequence is that this project has produced a suite of publications on religion and nanotech that are accessible to nonexperts. The project director is happy to send these publications to anyone who requests them: Toumey@mailbox.sc.edu.
