IT IS a serious fallacy to think that technology is ethically neutral. Far from it. Whether it is nuclear power or wind power, railway engines or siege engines, PCs or WCs, the artefacts and systems of technology are always a reflection of the values, concerns and aspirations of the society that produces them. As a technology becomes embedded in a society, it reshapes those values in turn, often unseen.
Even research science is not completely value-free. A collaboration of European nanotechnology researchers called Nano2Life has set up an ethical board, of which I am a member, to identify the likely…
