Fear of the invisible

Filed in archive Society & Ethics on February 4, 2006

"Infinity has a tendency to fill the mind with that sort of delightful horror, which is the most genuine effect and truest test of the sublime."

That's not an excerpt from Michael Crichton's "Prey", it's from the 18th century philosopher Edmund Burke.

Burke recognized that things too large or too small to grasp can overwhelm and frighten us. Nanotechnology instills fear in some partly because its results are invisible to the naked eye, but powerful in their effects. What you can't see, the argument goes, can kill you.

Authors and filmmakers have long played on our fear of the invisible, from The Invisible Man to The Blair Witch Project and Prey. Invisible demons, however, make difficult cinematic villains since they can't be seen. That's why the invisible demon of radioactivity, for example, frequently appears as fluorescent glowing goo in sci-fi movies-it gives it a presence we can relate to.

In real life, of course, the radioactivity that killed thirty people in Chernobyl didn't glow. And it's the invisibility, the stealth, of technologies like nuclear radiation, nanotechnology and biotechnology that scares people. The danger is seen as real, but the demon is invisible.

Nanoparticles have yet to prove so harmful, but uncertainty over their effects makes them a prime target for fear-mongers. The general public's ignorance of nanotech's effects creates a blank canvas that can be filled with the sort of delightful horror that Burke described. The same delightful horror that sells movie tickets and newspapers.

The antidote is information-access to facts, evaluations and informed speculation about nanotechnology and its social, environmental and ethical consequences. And that's why I write this blog, to help people think about these things before they feel swept up by them. As Burke observed:

"When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes."