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Discovering the Nanoscale

Eds. Davis Baird, Alfred Nordmann & Joachim Schummer
IOS Press, Amsterdam
Publication date: November 2004, second print 2005, third print 2009
321 + viii pp., ISBN: 1-58603-467-7

 Table of Contents (pdf)
 Introduction (pdf)
 Read papers online
 Web page of the publisher
Science and engineering, industry and politics, environmentalists and transhumanists are Discovering the Nanoscale. Policy makers are demanding explicit consideration of ethical, legal, and social aspects, and popular books are explaining the achievements and promises of nanoscience. It may therefore seem surprising that this is the first collection of studies that considers nanoscience and nanotechnologies from the critical perspective of Science and Technology Studies (STS). However, when one appreciates that such a critical perspective needs to be historically informed it often involves intimate acquaintance with the research process. Accordingly, this book on the historical, analytical, and ethical study of nanoscience and -technology has come together in a period of several years. Though it presents only first results, these results for the most part stem from sustained investigations of nanoscience and nanotechnologies and of the contexts that are shaping their development. Nanoscience and technologies are developing very quickly, and for this reason both pose a challenge to the more reflective approach commonly taken by science studies, while at the same time requiring the perspective provided by science studies scholars. Many are convinced that nothing meaningful can be said about the social and ethical implications of nanotechnologies at this early stage, but one can already see what programmatic attitudes go into nanoscale research, what metaphors are shaping it, and what conception of nature is implicit in its vision. It is also often assumed that in order to consider all aspects of nanotechnologies it is sufficient to know a bit of the science and to have some ethical intuitions. This collection of papers establishes that one also needs to appreciate nanoscale research and development in the larger context of the changing relations of science, technology, and society.

Discovering the Nanoscale - Complete Book online

Introduction (pp.1-5)
Davis Baird, Alfred Nordmann & Joachim Schummer

Part I: Configuring the Disciplines

Interdisciplinary Issues in Nanoscale Research (pp. 9-20)
Joachim Schummer

A Hierarchical Architecture for Nano-scale Science and Technology: Taking Stock of the Claims About Science Made By Advocates of NBIC Convergence (pp. 21-33)
George Khushf

Unbounded Technologies: Working Through Technological Reductionism of Nanotechnology (pp. 35-50)
Jan C. Schmidt

Molecular Disjunctions: Staking Claims at the Nanoscale (pp. 51-62)
Alfred Nordmann

Societal Dimensions of Nanotechnology as a Trading Zone: Results from a Pilot Project (pp. 63-73)
Michael E. Gorman, James F. Groves & Jeff Shrager

Part II: Searching for Theories of the Nanoscale

Nanoscale Technology: A Two-Sided Challenge for Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics (pp. 77-91)
Pieter E. Vermaas

Nanoscience and the Janus-Faced Character of Simulations (pp. 93-100)
Johannes Lenhard

Von Neumann, Self-Reproduction and the Constitution of Nanophenomena (pp. 101-115)
Otávio Bueno

Part III: Imaging the Nanoscale

How Probe Microscopists Became Nanotechnologists (pp. 119-133)
Cyrus C. M. Mody

Nanotechnology and the Negotiation of Novelty (pp. 135-144)
Arne Hessenbruch

Probing the History of Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (pp. 145-156)
Davis Baird & Ashley Shew

The Epistemology of the Very Small (pp. 157-163)
Joseph C. Pitt

Images in NanoScience/Technology (pp. 165-169)
Chris Robinson

Part IV: Communicating Nanotechnology

The Rhetoric of Nanotechnology (pp. 173-192)
David M. Berube

Nanomedicine and Space: Discursive Orders of Mediating Innovations (pp. 193-202)
Andreas Lösch

Shrinking the 'Ecological Footprint' with NanoTechnoScience? (pp. 203-208)
Astrid E. Schwarz

Dissolution of the Nature-Technology Dichotomy? Perspectives on Nanotechnology from an Everyday Understanding of Nature (pp. 209-213)
Gregor Schiemann

Part V: Examining the Politics of Nanotechnology

The End of Pure Science: Science Policy from Bayh-Dole to the NNI (pp. 217-230)
Ann Johnson

Grand Visions and Lilliput Politics: Staging the Exploration of the 'Endless Frontier' (pp. 231-246)
Hans Glimell

Deciding the Future of Nanotechnologies: Legal Perspectives on Issues of Democracy and Technology (pp. 247-255)
Jody A. Roberts

The Expert's Role in Nanoscience and Technology (pp. 257-266)
Edward Munn Sanchez

Part VI: Exploring Ethical Dimensions

Military, Arms Control, and Security Aspects of Nanotechnology (pp. 269-277)
Jürgen Altmann & Mark A. Gubrud

Perception of Risks and Nanotechnology (pp. 279-284)
Emmanuelle Schuler

Nano-Ethics (pp. 285-300)
Wade L. Robison

Nanoethics: Assessing the Nanoscale From an Ethical Point of View (pp. 301-310)
James H. Moor & John Weckert

Bibliography of Studies on Nanoscience & Nanotechnology (pp. 311-316)
Joachim Schummer

Index of Names (pp. 317-319)

Last update: 9/28/2011