Cultural Cognition of Nanotechnology (and a Variety of Other) Risks

Who fears nanotechnology, who doesn't, and why?

The UCSB Center for Nanotechnology in Society presents a lecture on:

"Cultural Cognition of Nanotechnology (and a Variety of Other) Risks"
Professor Dan Kahan, Yale University
Monday, Feb. 23, 11:00 am-12:30 pm, Elings Hall (CNSI) 1605

Abstract: The cultural cognition of risk refers to the tendency of individuals to conform their perceptions of the risks of putatively dangerous activities to their cultural evaluations of those activities. I will describe the theory behind cultural cognition and the methods researchers affiliated with the Cultural Cognition Project have used to test it. Findings relating to perceptions of nanotechnology risks will be prominently featured.

Dan Kahan is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law at Yale Law School. In addition to risk perception, his areas of research include criminal law and evidence. He is also one of the instructors in Yale Law School’s Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic. Prior to coming to Yale in 1999, Professor Kahan was on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School. He served as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall, of the U.S. Supreme Court and to Judge Harry Edwards of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He received his B.A. from Middlebury College and his J.D. from Harvard University.

Background readings for this talk are available from the CNS Education Director (julie@cns.ucsb.edu).