Controversies in Science and Technology: From Maize to Menopause

Introduction: From Maize to Menopause

Introduction From Maize to Menopause Abby J. Kinchy, Daniel Lee Kleinman, and Jo Handelsman It is unusual for a day to go by when science- or technology-related matters do not find their way into the news. The press has widely covered the debate about the use of human stem cells in research and medical therapy, and its discussion among policymakers, ethicists, scientists, and friends has been widespread. In the wake of the space shuttle Columbia disaster, the future of the U.S. space program has been on the policy table, and this discussion has raised important questions about the value of space science and the role of tax dollars in supporting it. Preliminary evidence suggesting the possibility that life once existed on Mars has prompted deep questions about the universe and our place in it. While we were putting the final touches on this book, the Bush administration was taken to task by a group of more than sixty of the U.S.’s most prominent scientists for distorting and suppressing scientific findings that contradict agency policies and for undermining the independence of government science advisory panels. In Mendocino, California, voters took science into their own hands by passing an initiative that will prohibit commercial use of genetically engineered crops, and in Germany, a French biotechnology company announced the results of research that, it contends, promises improved treatment for breast cancer. Whether it is food we eat, the medical treatment we or our loved ones receive, or the cell phones on which millions of us log thousands of minutes a year, 3 developments in science and technology affect our lives every day in ways that sometimes are close and tangible and other times more abstract—but always thought-provoking. This is the inaugural volume of what we expect to be a semiannual collection of essays covering science- and technology-related issues likely to be of wide public interest and of substantial public importance. The book has four sections. First, our contributors explore the growing debate about antibiotic use in livestock and antibiotic resistance. In the second section the writers consider the recently prominent phenomenon of gene flow and the related question of the virtues and drawbacks of genetically modified crops. In the third part of the book the authors discuss hormone replacement therapy, and in the final section contributors write about infectious disease and bioterrorism. A prominent figure introduces each section with an overview of the topic. These overview essays are designed to provide readers with a broad introduction to the technoscientific matters at stake in the area under examination . Several chapters follow the overview essay, with each chapter providing a very different perspective on the subject. We make no claim to comprehensiveness in our coverage—several volumes could be written about each topic at hand. Instead, we searched widely for reflective and engaging voices on the topics that this book covers. The writers include scientists, historians, journalists, a sociologist, an anthropologist, legal scholars, and a policy analyst. Our aim is to increase understanding and broaden dialogue. Although there is disagreement about what science literacy means and how widespread technoscientific illiteracy is, no one doubts that because developments in science and technology increasingly affect the day-to-day lives of people throughout the world, providing accessible and thought-provoking perspectives on these issues is a good thing. We hope that after reading these essays readers will be in a better position to think about the issues at stake, to explore matters further, and to participate in some of the central debates of our time. Overuse of Antibiotics on the Farm Widespread antibiotic resistance among human pathogens threatens to return us to an era of medicine that many associate with leeches and amputations. With the advent of penicillin, World War II was the first war 4 k i n c h y, k l e i n m a n, a n d h a n d e l s m a n in which more American soldiers died from bullets than from bacterial infections. The development of penicillin, and the proliferation of antibiotics that followed, transformed human existence, moving infectious disease far down the list of causes of human mortality (Lederberg 2000; Interagency Task Force 1996). During the last few decades of the twentieth century, infectious diseases caused by bacteria were considered treatable , not deadly. Many of us grew up in an...