ABSTRACT
A Stewardship in Question

Science has long turned up controversial facts and theories. But recent years have seen big changes in the relation of scientists and society. For one thing, advances in medicine and the pervasiveness of new technologies have made us more aware of the immediate benefits of the scientific enterprise. On the other hand, the revolt against “genetically-modified” food in Europe, and the European and US debates over cloning and embryonic stem-cell research have shown a new side to public engagement in the work of science, in which whether through government action or market forces applications of science that have had the support of many or most scientists have been rejected. The scientist’s claim to exercise stewardship on behalf of the community – a concomitant of the professional idea of science, in which much responsibility is devolved to the scientists themselves – is now in dispute. The growing shift of S and T into the private sector, symbolized and encouraged by Bayh-Dole, underlines the move of many scientists into an entrepreneurial role which the public has yet fully to grasp and which could have serious implications for public confidence in the public interest motivation of scientists that is key to their stewardly status.

ABOUT NIGEL M. de S. CAMERON:
Nigel M. de S. Cameron is research professor of bioethics and associate dean at Chicago-Kent College of Law, president of the Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future, and director of the Center on Nanotechnology and Society – all within the Illinois Institute of Technology. 
He was a co-chair of the 2005 International Congress of Nanotechnology, held in San Francisco last fall, and was on the advisory board for the “Nano & Bio in Society” Conference, held in Chicago in March 2006. 
The media frequently call upon Cameron as a nationally recognized commentator on technology and human dignity.  As director of the Center on Nanotechnology and Society, Cameron has planned several events for 2006 and 2007 that will help focus a national conversation on nanotechnology and human dignity.  These events include the Chicago Nano Forum series, as well as “NanoWorld:  Toward a Policy for the Human Future,” a nanotechnology conference and congressional briefing in Washington, D.C., on April 28, 2006.  In addition, Cameron is currently co-editing a book on nanotechnology and the human condition