X-Message-Number: 30505
References: <>
From: Kennita Watson <>
Subject: Re: Religion colors Americans' views of nanotechnology
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:36:28 -0800

> From: Mark Plus <>
> Subject: Religion colors Americans' views of nanotechnology
> Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 06:40:41 -0800
>
> http://www.physorg.com/news122309388.html
> ...
> "There seem to be distinct differences between the United States  
> and countries that are key players in nanotech in Europe, in terms  
> of attitudes toward nanotechnology," says Scheufele.
>
> Why the big difference?
>
> The answer, Scheufele believes, is religion: "The United States is  
> a country where religion plays an important role in peoples' lives.  
> The importance of religion in these different countries that shows  
> up in data set after data set parallels exactly the differences  
> we're seeing in terms of moral views. European countries have a  
> much more secular perspective."
>
> The catch for Americans with strong religious convictions,  
> Scheufele believes, is that nanotechnology, biotechnology and stem  
> cell research are lumped together as means to enhance human  
> qualities. In short, researchers are viewed as "playing God" when  
> they create materials that do not occur in nature, especially where  
> nanotechnology and biotechnology intertwine, says Scheufele.
> ...
>>
>

Mark Morford has a hopeful counterpoint to this in
today's column:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/02/20/ 
notes022008.DTL&nl=fix
New York condoms, Texas dildos
When sex toys are legal and contraceptives are free, are we not doomed?
By Mark Morford

Is it a good day in America? Is it a good time to be in this broke,  
disgraced, sexually bewildered country when the lumbering and lost  
state of Texas finally crawls, lurching and sputtering and blinking  
hard, into the 19th century as it finally, against its will, is  
forced by the courts to allow sex toys to be sold to adults, thus  
leaving only Alabama and a bit of Georgia to stare into the void of  
their own unused genitalia and scream in abject terror?

...



Never fear, the truth will out.


Live long and prosper,
Kennita

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