{"id":3148,"date":"2011-10-10T09:37:36","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T02:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nano2.toolsmkt.com\/?p=3148"},"modified":"2011-10-10T09:37:36","modified_gmt":"2011-10-10T02:37:36","slug":"democratizing-nanotech-then-and-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nanotec.or.th\/en\/democratizing-nanotech-then-and-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Democratizing Nanotech, Then and Now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Five years ago, the first issue of the journal Nature Nanotechnology was published. Chris Toumey asks, in this article, what progress has been made in efforts to engage the public in decisions about nanotechnology since that first issue.<!--more-->\u00a0In that first issue, he described the idea of \u201cdemocratizing science\u201d, which he defines as a \u201cstate of affairs in which non-experts have active and constructive roles in science policy decisions.\u201d The thought at the time was that nanotechnology would become a laboratory for experimenting with the idea of democratizing science. Toumey writes: \u201cIf democratizing science is going to happen, and especially if it is going to become standard practice in the formulation of science policy, then it needs to navigate a course between two undesirable options. First, we do not want science policy determined by political values that disregard scientific knowledge&#8230;Second, we want to avoid forcing science policy on a population that resents it, even if the policy is grounded in good scientific knowledge\u2026This is an eye of a needle that is difficult to thread: avoid decisions based on pseudoscience, but also avoid decisions that come from undemocratic processes. Where are we now, five years later?\u201d Toumey asks various experts in the field for their opinions on his question, and outlines their responses in five detailed observations. He concludes that \u201cEven though public engagement with nanotechnology is less than what we hoped it would be by now, and even though nanotechnology is an extremely difficult test case for democratizing science, it is still one of the best laboratories we have for creating ways for non-experts to have active and constructive roles in science policy decision processes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/nnano\/journal\/v6\/n10\/full\/nnano.2011.168.html\">http:\/\/www.nature.com\/nnano\/journal\/v6\/n10\/full\/nnano.2011.168.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Five years ago, the first issue of the journal Nature Nanotechnology was published. Chris Toumey asks, in this article, what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology-update"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Democratizing Nanotech, Then and Now - National Nanotechnology Center<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nanotec.or.th\/en\/democratizing-nanotech-then-and-now\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Democratizing Nanotech, Then and Now - National Nanotechnology Center\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Five years ago, the first issue of the journal Nature Nanotechnology was published. 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