The Social Problem

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.

Omar Bradley, General of the Army

Introduction

The social problem we address in this course is, "How does society bring about the adoption of beneficial innovations (or the rejection of harmful ones) as quickly as possible within an arena of public discourse that respects the opinions of others?"

If the innovation is mainly a beneficial one, then society wants to adopt it as soon as possible. If the innovation is a harmful one, then society wants to reject it as soon as possible. For simplicity, we will orient this course to the adoption of mainly beneficial innovations. All the same principles we will learn to bring about the adoption of a favorable innovation (e.g., treating water to prevent water-borne illnesses) can be used as well to bring about the rejection of a harmful innovation (e.g., smoking tobacco).

An innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new. What might seem familiar to some is new to others. Innovations can be material or nonmaterial. In practice, these two types of innovations become intertwined because the adoption of material innovations brings about changes in social relations. That is, culture responds to changes in material conditions. Understanding relationships among culture, values, existing practices, and political/social/economic relations is a necessary condition to understanding and facilitating technology transfer.

Innovations need not be "high tech" in nature. In a developing country an innovation might be boiling water to prevent disease. Or, an innovation might be the adoption of condom use to help reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases. An innovation might be a new approach to teach calculus to high school students. It might be a new business plan for a corporation. An innovation can be any type of material or nonmaterial idea, practice, or object that is seen as new by potential adopters.

We might classify innovations as either low involvement or high involvement. By low involvement innovations we mean ones that elicit little public controversy. A new type of shaving cream that promises "less skin irritation," for example, is unlikely to create much concern among opposition groups or raise much public outcry. A high involvement innovation is one that does create public concern. It causes concern because it challenges strongly held beliefs (e.g., stem cell research), sounds scary (e.g., food irradiation), threatens ones environment (e.g., large-scale hog confinement operations), raise the specter of unknown negative consequences (e.g., genetic modification of organisms), or creates other concerns. Typically, for high involvement innovations we mean ones where an organized group is actively opposing the change. Hence, the adoption of the innovation must come about within the context of organized opposition.

To simplify our discussion we will assume that the innovation under consideration is safe, wholesome, etc., and that, as change agents we are seeking adoption of this innovation. Thus, here is our challenge: "How do we facilitate the adoption of a [favorable] innovation as quickly as possible while encouraging public discourse that is respectful of the opinions of others?"

The Consumer's Dilemma

To answer our question we need first to understand our audience: Consumers. Oftentimes, the word "consumer," when used in the context of discussions about the adoption of new technologies, particularly when the discussions are held by persons working in the life and physical sciences, becomes synonymous with words like, "irrational," "uninformed," and "unreasonable in their lack of trust in government institutions." Indeed, public responses to new technologies can differ from those of a trained scientist. But to fully understand new technologies as viewed by the public, and to facilitate rapid adoption of these technologies (that for simplicity we will assume to be mainly beneficial), we need to gain a more accurate and complete profile of the consumer.

To do so, please consider these illustrative points:

Do you own a cellular telephone? With no further instructions or plans, can you build a working cellular telephone by purchasing the needed parts and assembling them correctly? If not, then you are IGNORANT!
- Being ignorant, or uninformed is unavoidable. All of us are ignorant and uniformed. That does not necessarily mean we are irrational and unreasonable, just ignorant.
Do you have 100% trust in everything that your government tells you 100% of the time? If not, then you DO NOT TRUST YOUR GOVERNMENT!
- Not fully trusting your government does not mean you are unreasonable. A social scientist would assert that not only would you be a fool to trust your government completely, but you would be a irresponsible citizen to do so. A democracy simply will not work if its citizens do not ask questions, challenge, probe, and offer alternative proposals for action.
Suppose you are walking down a well-known path through the woods. You walk this path often. On this day as you walk, close to your feet your hear a rustle in the leaves? Do you take notice, move to the side, check it out? If so, you are SKEPTICAL!
- Being skeptical does not mean you are irrational, it means you are doing what comes naturally: checking out potential dangers.

You can see the point I am making by presenting these silly examples. Being ignorant is unavoidable. Being untrusting is one's responsibility. Being skeptical is a survival skill. Being ignorant, untrusting, and skeptical are neither character flaws nor indications of an irrational person. Thus, when first hearing about a complex, controversial technology, the reasonable, rational person will be skeptical about adopting it.

One might argue that once the individual receives the scientific facts about a high-involvement innovation they would be irrational to continue to be untrusting and skeptical. After all, now they are no longer ignorant, but informed about the scientific facts.

Here's the rub. First, science is never perfect. It cannot be. So, hearing the scientific facts will not necessarily reduce skepticism because people know that scientists sometimes make mistakes. We will talk about this phenomena more in later sections of this course. Second, and key to understanding the difference between low- and high-involvement innovations, for high-involvement innovations the public is also receiving information from scientists who are concerned about potential negative consequences of the innovation. The public is being "educated" from both sides! Without having the knowledge base of the scientist an otherwise highly educated person, a reasonable person, a rational person will wonder, "Who is right?" That is, knowing that sometimes scientists make mistakes and that sometimes governmental regulatory agencies make mistakes, the consumer's dilemma is, "Whom do I trust this time?"

Education of the Public

How do we overcome reasonable, rational, uninformed fear of controversial new technologies? (I will no longer remind us that when we state we are seeking to "gain adoption" we are assuming the technology is mainly beneficial. We will, however, spend a lot of time in the course on understanding the decisions that determine whether we consider a technology to be mainly beneficial).

The reasonable answer to this question is to educate the public about the new technology. Tell them the scientific facts. Certainly, distributing scientific facts is an essential first step to gaining adoption. But guess what? In the initial stages of gaining adoption, when scientists are telling the public about the favorable qualities of the new technology, public acceptance will drop dramatically!

Why? Because opponents of the technology also are distributing information and negative information carries disproportionate weight in the initial stages of the diffusion of innovations. Why so much weight to negative information? Why does the public listen more to non-scientists? The public does not listen more to non-scientists, but during the initial phases of the diffusion of innovations they listen and pay heed. To return to our silly example, most likely the rustle in the leaves is being caused by something no more harmful than a chipmunk. But it could be rabid raccoon. Science sometimes makes mistakes!

One might respond to my scenario thus far by saying that those who distribute negative information about new technologies are pseudo-scientists who twist scientific findings for the purpose of fearmongering. Sometimes they are; there is money to be made in fearmongering. Importantly, however, science messes up often enough that sometimes persons who raise concerns have valid points. For example, no matter how much one might dismiss the proclamations of Public Citizen (the organization founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader), the fact remains that this and similar organizations have made valuable contributions to improving the safety of all citizens.

So, if education will not work, then what does? That is what we will learn in this course. We will need to cover a lot of material before we are ready to answer this question. I hope you find the material informative and enjoyable.