Grand Visions and Lilliput Politics: Staging the Exploration of 'the Endless Frontier'

The paper outlines a sociological analysis of politics and rhetorics accompanying the genesis of nanotechnology as the latest research policy priority. It gives an account of certain traits and events linked to the NNI initiative, being conceived of as ‘gatekeeping activities’ in relation to its emerging societal agenda. Further, it demonstrates how these become permeated by the self-replication controversy. In an attempt to situate the present appropriation of ‘nano’ also in a wider transformation, the paper proceeds by taking stock of the changing science-society relations. It reviews in passing some of the current debates on the new mode of knowledge production and the heralding of a ‘scientific citizenship’. 1. Navigating the ‘Spaces between’ “As ‘the Hermes of modern scholarships’ (i.e. a prominent interpreter of mediation, translation and multiplicity), the French philosopher Michel Serres has made the quest for connections between science and the humanities his lifelong mission. ” There is in his understanding nothing like a smooth ‘interface’ between those two domains of human knowledge. There is sometimes communication, but also non-communication and static. Pursuing this, Serres has set himself the task of exploring landscapes which are rough, variable, baffling; where there are interesting ‘spaces between’. The rough and unruly conditions of the NorthWest Passage here provide the key metaphor: “Between the hard sciences and the so-called human sciences the passage resembles a jagged shore, sprinkled with ice, and variable” (Serres 1981). At the present stage of technoscience, sociologists, philosophers, ethicists and historians of science are to an increasing extent invited to set up or accompany expeditions heading towards those rough waters where nature and culture intersect. This can be traced back to a widened political recognition of the importance to open ‘Pandora’s Box of Science and Technology’ before its stream of inventions is released to transform society on a full-scale. As an example for the broad-based demonstration of a new prospective policy, one could think here of the political mobilization in recent years for investigation and control of the nanoscale. Whereas uncertainty, irregularities, and unexpected fractures permeate Serres’ NorthWest Passage, the nano policies now launched by politicians, civil servants and other stakeholders are fueled by visions of smoothness and reliable navigation to safely steer clear of obstacles. The architects of current initiatives confidently declare that this time we will avoid future frictions, controversies and outbursts of public mistrust of science (such as H. Glimell: Grand Visions and Lilliput Politics 232 those experienced by geneticists or nuclear scientists) by “making everything right from the start”. Serres’ metaphor may serve, I suggest, as a useful antidote to the current public and media appropriation of ‘nano’. Although playing down roughness and glossing over unruly conditions may be inherent features of the political naivete accommodating contemporary ‘hypes’ around emerging technologies, they should not be allowed too much leeway when it comes to the scholarly accounts of the intersections between the sciences and the humanities. No matter how very desirable smooth interfaces sometimes may appear, it remains the critical task of social scientists to recognize the existence and implications of ‘the spaces between’. From here, the paper proceeds as follows. As a first destination, some of the politics and rhetorics accompanying the genesis of the American National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) will be visited. This will therefore be about ‘bringing nano in’, or – echoing Coffin and King’s smashing hit back in 1962 – about the invention of ‘the Roco-motion’. The next destination is the specific outgrowth of the NNI where the so-called ‘societal implications’ of ‘nano’ are to be looked into further. I am going to ask how this came about in the first place, but will also raise the more impertinent but still largely open question what kind of activities will be judged as appropriate in that realm, or: who will be allowed in there? In doing that, I will describe in some detail certain ‘gatekeeping activities’ that are safeguarding this new policy, including an attempt to reconstruct the key controversy underpinning this micropolitics. Next there will be a short tour through some of the current debate on the sciencesociety relation, by some referred to as the changing ‘mode of knowledge production’. Certain social science constructs such as ‘the public understanding of science’ and ‘scientific citizenship’ will be introduced in an attempt to situate the present appropriation of ‘nano’ in a wider socio-political transformation. I finish this part by elaborating a bit the idea that for contemporary technoscience the so-called ‘context of implication’ is becoming as important as the ‘context of application’. That offer links back to Serres, while also serving as a bridge to my sketch of things to consider when setting out to ‘discover the nanoscale’. 2. Bringing ‘Nano’ in (the Invention of ‘the Roco-motion’) “We offer next to nothing”, reads the text on a poster facing those who enter the spacious hall of the new Nanoelectronics Centre at Chalmers Institute of Technology in Goteborg, housing one of the most advanced laboratories for nanometer-based research in Europe. That makes a good joke of course, a witty reference to the fact that just about everything in this minutely vibration-protected building, is under a spell of processes taking place at a scale 80000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. Also, anyone familiar with the recent flood of nano rhetorics can read the irony of that poster, since what indeed is being offered in this current outbreak of ‘techno-babble’ comes much closer to ‘next to everything’ than ‘next to nothing’. The stunning political success of the NNI has been embedded in rhetorics zigzagging between ‘the glorious past’ and ‘the unique opportunity of today’. In the extensive material gathered during a series of workshops, there are references to legends like Vannevar Bush and his famous manifesto from the 1940s (Bush 1945), and to academic champions like Richard Feynman. But above all, it is humankind’s present predicament which is said to require extraordinary action and commitment. Almost like a mantra, phrases are repeated such as “We are in an Age of Transitions, when we must move forward if we are not to fall behind”. One here walks down a well-known road by claiming modern societies’ dependence on scientists’ authorative knowledge to sustain its citizens’ welfare. Beyond that, one also embraces the idea that at certain points in history – such as this one – scientists have to H. Glimell: Grand Visions and Lilliput Politics 233 shoulder our common fate by grappling with risks: “At times, scientists should take great intellectual risks, exploring unusual and even unreasonable ideas, because the scientific method for testing theories empirically can ultimately distinguish the good ideas from the bad ones” (Roco 2001). The grandiose scope of the NNI was from its outset manifested as nine ‘Grand Challenges’, wrapped in ‘airy’ and clearly under-socialized technological visions. Certainly this is no new phenomenon in conjunction with science policy. One could think of it as a necessary playing to the gallery, instrumental in drawing public attention to a new candidate for the policy top of the charts. In this case, however, instead of moderating the hype once the money was there, one escalated it. In December 2001, NNI-general Roco with the help of experts gathered for a workshop, to further inflate his bella donna. As the building blocks for all sciences are to be found at the nanoscale, one could, those experts claimed, by pulling down the barriers between the major provinces of contemporary science, accomplish radical improvements in human life. By chance, these provinces coincided with the four invogue areas nano-bio-info-cogno. Instead of four potent provinces there now came forth a fully irresistible NBIC empire. Only shortly after its public launch as the new ‘endless frontier’ then, ‘nano’ was recast as merely the precursor for the ultimate ‘endless-ness’ of the scientific endeavor (Roco & Bainbridge 2002). The ‘NBIC’-vision at once is making all scientific progress up to now look rather pale in comparison. ‘Lilliput Politics’ is clearly ‘Grand Politics’, and vice versa. There is simply no limit to what utopian qualities the synergistic combination of the NBIC provinces can add to the yet so imperfect world, to how truly powerfully they will be able to energize one another: Entirely new categories of materials, devices and systems for use in manufacturing, construction, transportation, medicine, emerging technologies, and scientific research [. ] engineered biological processes to manufacture valuable new materials [. ] a union of nanotechnology, biotechnology and computer science may be able to create “bio-nano processors” for programming complex biological pathways on a chip that mimic cellular processes. Virtual reality and augmented reality computer technology will allow scientists to visualize the cell from inside, and to see exactly what they are doing as they manipulate individual protein molecules and cellular nanostructures. [. ] a ubiquitous network that collects and offers diverse kinds of information in multiple modalities, every-where and instantly at any moment. (Roco & Bainbridge,