Nanotechnology and the human future: policy, ethics, and risk.

The extraordinary potential of nanoscale research and development has yet to be matched in the growth of public awareness of the technology and its implications for society. Groups have emerged that are highly critical of the technology, and others that see it as the key to the radical transformation of human nature itself. Between these extremes, the direction of federal policy has been to encourage the technology while respecting the integrity of the human condition.

Research ethics, science policy, and four contexts for the stem cell debate.

There are plainly conscientious differences of opinion among scientists, politicians, and the public in respect of both the ethics of embryonic stem cell research and the more general question of the role of public policy in setting parameters for what is legal and what is funded in the biosciences. Although professional discussion of embryonic stem cell research is not hampered by the often misleading oversimplifications of the press, it remains true that the wide range of ethical options is rarely explored. These varied positions arise from a series of at least six logically distinct policy options, which we may summarize in these terms: (a) All use of human embryos for research is wrong.