And I think we're paying the price for twenty or thirty years ago, when that wasn't considered as much of our responsibility. She says that some researchers are working hard to move in the right direction. The Biotechnology Center hosts frequent seminars for the public, including a recent one to help grandparents get their grandchildren interested in science. But there is a role for public universities that goes beyond providing information. Both people within the research community and on the interested edges agree that UW-Madison must be open and receptive to public comment on its role in the biotechnology revolution, or else risk its credibility as a public university.
People are suspicious.
They want an honest discussion of risk, and they want issues that are not normally considered scientifically valid to be on the table. Kloppenburg adds that any debate about the merits of biotechnology should include a real exploration of alternative technologies and even non-technological ways of solving the same problems. How we use things is a social question. Technology is a social creation, and economies are social creations. They work by our rules.