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Adding to the Mix: Integrating ELSI into a National Nanoscale Science and Technology Center

Science and Engineering Ethics volume 17, pages 743–760 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

This paper describes issues associated with integrating the study of Ethical, Legal and Social Issues (ELSI) into ongoing scientific and technical research and describes an approach adopted by the authors for their own work with the center for nanophase materials sciences (CNMS) at the Oak Ridge national laboratory (ORNL). Four key questions are considered: (a) What is ELSI and how should it identify and address topics of interest for the CNMS? (b) What advantages accrue to incorporating ELSI into the CNMS? (c) How should the integration of ELSI into the CNMS take place? (d) How should one judge the effectiveness of the activity? We conclude that ELSI research is not a monolithic body of knowledge, but should be adapted to the question at hand. Our approach focuses on junctures in the R&D continuum at which key decisions occur, avoids topics of a purely ethical nature or advocacy, and seeks to gather data in ways that permit testing the validity of generalization. Integrating ELSI into the CNMS allows dealing with topics firmly grounded in science, offers concrete examples of potential downstream applications and provides access to the scientists using the CNMS and their insights and observations. As well, integration provides the opportunity for R&D managers to benefit from ELSI insights and the potential to modify R&D agendas. Successful integration is dependent on the particular ELSI question set that drives the project. In this case questions sought to identify key choices, information of value to scientists, institutional attributes, key attributes of the CNMS culture, and alternatives for communicating results. The opportunity to consult with scientists on ELSI implications is offered, but not promoted. Finally, ELSI effectiveness is judged by observing the use to which research products are put within the CNMS, ORNL, and the community of external scholars.

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Fig. 1

Notes

  1. The precise manner in which injections of information affect public opinion is not fully resolved. However, Kahan et al. (2009) present evidence that the “familiarity hypothesis,” i.e., the view that support for nanotechnologies will grow with awareness, was not broadly supported in their experimental study. Instead, a cultural cognition approach showed a strong relationship between a subject’s worldview, e.g., individualistic vs. communitarian, and their evaluation of nanotechnology, with individualistics expressing positive attitudes toward nanotechnologies and communitarians emphasizing the need for public oversight. This finding suggests that the particular “worldview” held by individuals, interacting with information, will shape their opinions toward technologies like nanotechnology.

  2. http://www.cnms.ornl.gov/, accessed June 1, 2011.

  3. http://science.energy.gov/ accessed June 1, 2011. Also see Thayer (2007) for a discussion of DOE and other nanocenters and institutes.

  4. This literature is too diverse to include comprehensively in this narrative. However, there are a number of overviews on the topic (Berube 2006, 2010; Fisher 2005; National Science and Technology Council 2004; Paradise et al. 2009; Roco 2006; Roco and Bainbridge 2005; Scheufele and Lewenstein 2005; Schummer 2004; Stone and Wolfe 2006).

  5. The Center webpage is located at http://cnms.ornl.gov/index.shtm.

  6. http://www.cnms.ornl.gov/about_cnms/about_cnms.shtm, accessed June 1, 2011.

  7. Gordijn (2005) points out the dangers of viewing a topic as diverse as nanoscience and technology in terms of its extremes and calls for greater balance in describing the technology and its outputs to gain a more balanced ethical view of the nano field. Davies (2009) compares the existing system for nanotechnology oversight with that which would be required in the future.

  8. Within the broad definition of "a decision" used here, choices by agencies of government to “educate the public” rather than to “listen to the public” are as much ELSI decisions as are choices to adopt specific waste disposal practices that result from convergent S&T R&D. We interpret the behavioral underpinnings of public discourse leading to the formation of public sentiment or opinion also as bound up in decision processes. For a detailed description of upstream engagement see Rogers-Hayden et al. (2007).

  9. These programs are described in some detail at the agencies’ respective websites, http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/elsi.shtml and http://www.genome.gov/10001618.

  10. For example, one doctor-patient model embodies a bottom-up approach to medical treatment plans wherein the caregiver and the patient determine the path forward in relative isolation from choices by others in similar situations. An alternative top-down approach, sometimes called the public health model, tends to focus on the population of recipients rather than individuals. A doctor-patient decision might consider whether to run tests to identify genetic markers indicative of future disease conditions. A public health decision would focus on how information from such tests might be used to inform third parties, such as relatives that might share some genetic attributes.

  11. See Sandler (2009) for a discussion of recent reauthorization of nano research program.

  12. Davies (2006, 2009) provides a good review of the challenges facing regulation of next generation nanotechnologies.

  13. See for example, International Risk Governance Council http://www.irgc.org/irgc/projects/nanotechnology/, accessed June 1, 2011. Also see Jane Macoubrie (2005) and, for a cross-cultural comparison, that of George Gaskell et al. (2005).

  14. US Environmental Protection Agency (2007) has recently outlined the challenges it anticipates that nanotechnology will pose and the responses the agency will make. See also Beveridge & Diamond, P. C. (2010) for an update on EPA regulations.

  15. Joy’s article described a hypothetical, and some would say impossible, scenario in which self-assembly nanomachines ran amuck, covering the globe with a layer of gray matter.

  16. These publications also reflect ambiguities in how “nano” is defined, portrayed, or promoted in science and commerce [see, e.g., National Research Council (2006)].

  17. Examples include Lemley (2005), Surrato et al. (2005), and Bawa (2007). Other examples include patent data bases that are offered for sale through auctions and other innovation pricing mechanisms, (e.g., http://software.techrepublic.com.com/download.aspx?docid=210192, accessed June 1, 2011.

  18. Among many possible examples are University of South Carolina courses on nanotechnology topics, e.g., “Communicating Risk,” “Nanophilosophy,” and “The Societal Implications of Nanotechnology,” http://www.umass.edu/sts/nano/, [Accessed on June 1, 2011], and Arizona State University’s Center for Nanotechnology and Society’s curriculum and training activities (http://cns.asu.edu/program/education.htm, [Accessed on June 1, 2011].

  19. Real-time technology assessment, central to the research component of the Center for Nanotechnology and Society at Arizona State University, is implemented through four methods: “mapping…research dynamics,” monitoring public and researcher values, engaging researchers and the public, and reflexive evaluation (http://cns.asu.edu/program/research.htm, [Accessed June 1, 2011]).

  20. A variation of the research design described here that also appears quite effective for incorporating ELSI with ongoing science can be found in the work of Schuurbiers and Fisher (2009).

  21. A separate ELSI website, http://www.elsi.ornl.gov, is under development.

  22. We draw a distinction between acceptability, as the consideration of an issue, and acceptance, which reflects a judgment about that issue (Wolfe et al. 2002).

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and guest editor Erik Fisher for insightful and detailed comments on various drafts of this paper. We also thank Barry Shumpert of Oak Ridge National Laboratory for helping to incorporate recent additions to the literature in the final version of the paper and journal editor Stephanie Bird. All improved the final product. The authors accept responsibility for any remaining errors or omissions. This work is funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research through its Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues Activity (ELSI), KP1603000.

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  1. Society-Technology Interactions Group Leader, Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008 MS 6038, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831-6036, USA

    David J. Bjornstad & Amy K. Wolfe

  2. Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

    David J. Bjornstad

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  1. David J. Bjornstad
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  2. Amy K. Wolfe
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Correspondence to David J. Bjornstad.

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Bjornstad, D.J., Wolfe, A.K. Adding to the Mix: Integrating ELSI into a National Nanoscale Science and Technology Center. Sci Eng Ethics 17, 743–760 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-011-9311-1

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Keywords

  • ELSI
  • Ethical, legal, and social issues
  • Nanotechnology
  • Center for nanophase materials sciences
  • Science policy