Biotechnology, Security and the Search for Limits: An Inquiry Into Research and Methods

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Palgrave Macmillan, Aug 15, 2007 - Political Science - 198 pages
Since 9/11 and the U.S. anthrax attacks, public, and policy concerns about the security threats posed by biological weapons has increased significantly. As a result, there are now active international deliberations about what restrictions should be placed on the openness of scientific research. Biotechnology, Security and the Search for Limits examines these security implications for life science research as well as the methodological issues associated with conducting social research. In doing so the book considers the place of biological and social research in creating and responding to societal problems through drawing on diverse academic traditions such as discourse analysis, social problems studies, philosophy, action research, science and technology studies, politics, and public policy.

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Contents

What Should be Done?
1
The Dilemmas of Dualuse Research
23
Discussing Science
36
Copyright

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About the author (2007)

BRIAN RAPPERT is an Associate Professor of Science, Technology and Public Affairs in the Department of Sociology& Philosophy at the University of Exeter, UK. His long term interest has been the examination of how choices can and are made about the regulation of technologies in conditions of uncertainty and disagreement. He is the author of Controlling the Weapons of War: Politics, Persuasion and the Prohibition of Inhumanity (2006); Technology and Security (ed., 2007), and A Web of Prevention: Biological Weapons, Life Sciences and the Future Governance of Research (with Caitriona McLeish eds., 2007).