Out of step?

As detailed in this BBC report the UK science minister (at least until the forthcoming election), Lord Sainsbury, has provided the government's response to last year's Royal Society report on nanotechnology. Predictably, they have ordered a further review, to address gaps in the knowledge and contribute towards appropriate regulation. Equally predictably, they are providing no more money, and detailed plans will not be available until the autumn, more than a year after the Royal Society report was issued.

To some extent, this highlights the dilemma politicians find themselves in: they want to avoid new technologies suffering the same current fate as GM crops, but don't really know what the answer is. The natural temptation is to resort to precautionary regulation, but the evidence is that this does nothing to reassure people. The average citizen thinks that if something is highly regulated, there's probably something wrong with it.

There is a clear case for going forward on the basis of evidence: by all means being cautious, but not succumbing to the lure of unnecessary precaution to try (unsuccessfully) to address the concerns of the worried activist minority. We elect governments to lead and take rational decisions on our behalf, not to be swayed by those who shout loudest.