Public Opinion in the EU

There have been remarkable changes in the public perception of biotechnology since 1999. During that time, trust in industry, and in particularly biotech industry was very low, there was a trust deficit of 12%.[1] This was largely because of controversies around food, namely the BSE[2] crisis, GMOs and hormone beef. The trust in biotech industry rose in ten years to 50%. 53% of Europeans are optimistic about biotechnology and genetic engineering, against 20% of the people who indicate a negative sentiment.[3] The remaining percentage does not know what to answer. A report made by order of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research in 2010 comes with the following conclusion: There is a robust and positive perception of the biotechnology system. It seems fair to conclude that Europeans have moved on from the crisis of confidence of the mid to late 1990’s.” [4]

The confidence in biotech rose over the years, but with 50% of the EU population that trust the biotech industry, there are still tens of millions of people that do not trust the industry that is changing society. The most important reason for the mistrust is that the people have the feeling that their opinions are not taken into account, despite several public dialogues with science initiatives.[5]

The poll results around nanotech are less pronounced, 55% of the EU population has not heard of nanotechnology yet.[6] In The Netherlands 54% of the population supports nanotechnology which makes them one of the least supportive populations in the EU. Overall, the perception of nanotechnology is at this moment rather neutral, with safety being the main issue. This is not remarkable since half of the population has not yet heard of the technique.

Since no people or animals are directly harmed in the research around the BBE, and since the goal of the overall project is to make more efficient use of solar energy, there seems to be hardly any critical ethical objections. However, one possible concern is that the research represents an attempt to fix social problems by technological means. Such an approach is sometimes criticized because it involves a technology being developed to fix a problem that is created by another technology. In this way more difficulties could be created while a more obvious solution, such as behavioral change, is not applied. Scott describes several views for and against technological fixes in his 2011 article. Technological fixes are usually a lot simpler than social ones, both in describing the problem and in finding a solution.[7] Fixing a clogged sewer once in a while will for example usually take less effort than stopping people from flushing large items down the toilet. Weinberg (1969) argues that the availability of a technological solution can often help in focusing on the problem.[8] Another argument given in Scott’s article for technological fixes is that these fixes do not have to take human behavior into account, and can therefore be less complex and more predictable. In this way, the technological fix is more easily implemented and, therefore, has a higher success rate in the short-term as compared to social changes. Another reason in favor of technological fixes are that technology provides more options to deal with certain problems and thereby offers policy makers more time to deal with the problem on other levels, including social ones.

The arguments against technological fixes are mostly that they are excluding many factors, leading to unforeseen consequences and generating new problems. A common way of expressing this is that technological fixes only focus on the symptoms instead of the disease. In this sense technological fixes are the typical result of an anthropocentric world view, and derive from an uncritical view of technoscientific progress. Some believe that the idea that humans control nature is false, in which case more power over nature would in fact lead to more hazards; rather, the solution is to be found in modifying values and goals.[9] However, looking at how The Netherlands tackles the omnipresent threat of floodings one could conclude that technological fixes are definitely able to lower hazards, at least for the human population.[10]

“[T]he philosophical criticisms are not necessarily against the use of science and technology. Instead they challenge the habitual way of thinking that sees technological fixes as the dominant way to solve our most urgent problems.”[11] The overall conclusion on technological fixes might be that, although we cannot live without technology, we should not focus only on technology to solve our problems. There is always a danger that certain side effects cause more problems than originally foreseen

The issues brought into play by GM can be divided into, first, the consequences of the technology (mostly a risk analysis) and, second, issues around the act of modifying with respect to the value of naturalness and the intrinsic value of non-human organisms.[12]

 

[1] Percentage of Europeans who trust a certain industry,  as described in Gaskell and et al. 2010, 76

[2] Bovine spongiform encephalopathy

[3] Ibid

[4] Ibid, 9

[5] See Wynne 2006

[6] From “Eurobarometer ‘Biotechnology’ 341/Wave 73.1” 2010, 33

[7] Scott 2011

[8] Scott 2011, 209

[9] Drengson 1984, 260

[10] A broader perspective is described in White 1967

[11] Scott 2011, 215

[12] Described in Gregorowius, Lindemann-Matthies, and Huppenbauer 2012