A Citizens' Consensus Conference on Nanotechnology in Wisconsin
National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation convenor Sandy Heierbacher just sent me a notice about the Initiative on Nanotechnology and Society at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which conducted a citizens' consensus conference on Nanotechnology during April and has just posted a report with citizen recommendations.
I think of citizens' consensus conferences as one of the most sophisticated forms of citizen deliberation. They are an official function of Parliament in Denmark, organized by the Danish Board of Technology. Only a few have been held in the U.S., and not always according to the specific Danish technique, which I think is unfortunate. That was the case here, as well:
Participant selection: Usually in the Danish process, participants are chosen as a cross-section of the country, from a sizable pool randomly selected from the whole population. However, in many other countries (including the US) where the method has been used, organizers advertise for participants in media and local organizations. That seems to be the method used by UW-Madison. Unless tremendous care is taken, this latter approach runs the risk of greater bias among the participants.
Briefing sessions: In the Danish approach, participants meet for two weekends, approximately a month apart, before convening in the public forum to hear expert testimony. During those prior meetings they talk extensively with each other and the organizers, learning about each other and the issue they're considering. They play an active role in choosing the experts who will testify to them, as well as what questions to ask. It is not clear how much of this was done in the UW-Madison process. It seems they only met for a day or so immediately before the public forum, which would have at the very least limited their role in selecting experts.
Nevertheless, this is a historic effort to bring an informed, inclusive, common sense voice of We the People into the public dialogue on important issues and I hope to see many more such efforts in the future.
In addition to a press release about this event, Sandy sent me links to the full report of the Madison Area Citizen Consensus Conference on Nanotechnology -- including their recommendations -- as well as a news article about the conference and its recommendations.
I hope the organizers can provide us with more information about this important event here in the Evolving Collective Intelligence blog.
posted by Tom Atlee on Wednesday May 4 2005
updated on Saturday September 24 2005URL of this article:
http://www.communicationagents.com/tom_atlee/2005/05/04/a_citizens_consensus_conference_on_nanotechnology_in_wisconsin.htm
Related ArticlesReflections on the evolution of choice and collective intelligence
I had an interesting conversation about choice today with my friend and colleague Adin Rogovin. We noticed that increased choice may increase or decrease happiness. Choice -- seen by most people as supporting happiness -- can be overwhelming, or false, or of poor quality. Lack of choice -- normally thought of as a source of unhappiness -- can make life simple, supporting happiness if one's life situation is otherwise satisfying.... [read more]
May 15, 2008 - Tom AtleeWhole System Learning and Evolution -- and the New Journalism
A few days ago I stumbled on a new model for whole-system intelligence inspired by some work my friend Peggy Holman is doing with Journalism that Matters. These journalists are reexamining the kinds of stories they tell and their role in democracy, especially in light of how the rise of bloggers and other citizen journalists challenges mainstream media. Journalism that Matters is trying to revision that challenge into a create... [read more]
May 08, 2008 - Tom AtleeConversations That Shape the Future: A Review of THE WORLD CAFE
Juanita Brown's The World Cafe: Shaping our Futures through Conversations that Matter (Berrett-Koehler 2005) is a profoundly insightful and richly practical book, designed for evolutionary times. For me, it is already a classic. One expects it to be a book about one conversational practice, The World Café, written by its co-founder. It is. And it isn't. What it is -- most of all -- is an exploration of the... [read more]
July 15, 2005 - Tom Atlee
 |
||
|
|
|
|
||
Warning: include(/usr/www/users/ikonos/communicationagents/tom_atlee/includes/license.htm) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /usr/www/users/ikonos/communicationagents/tom_atlee/2005/05/04/a_citizens_consensus_conference_on_nanotechnology_in_wisconsin.htm on line 694
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/usr/www/users/ikonos/communicationagents/tom_atlee/includes/license.htm' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in /usr/www/users/ikonos/communicationagents/tom_atlee/2005/05/04/a_citizens_consensus_conference_on_nanotechnology_in_wisconsin.htm on line 694