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Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > Annual Report on the Promotion of Science and Technology 1999 > Part1 Chapter3 Section3 3

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Part 1: New Developments in Science and Technology Policy: Responding to National and Societal Needs
Chapter 3: Future Science and Technology Policy in Japan
Section 3: Striving for Harmony Between Science and Technology and People and Society
3. Creating the Foundations of Individual Rational Judgment by the Public


This entails enabling individual members of the general public to think about and make rational judgments about science and technology.

Individuals must now consider how to use science and technology to achieve their own goals, and to judge which of an increasingly diverse range of options is optimum for them. As in the case of organ transplants from brain-dead donors, ethics and values are sometimes a major factor in making judgments concerning such choices.

Thus, with respect to science and technology, individuals require the ability to decide whether or not to use a given technology after considering not just various scientific and technological details but also the various benefits of application, the ethical and values-related implications, and even the social and environmental effects.

In efforts to promote understanding, it is important to provide objective, easy-to-understand information so that individuals can have a basis for making such judgments. This entails not just a one-sided flow of information, but rather a process in which public reaction is monitored and in which both sides think together. In short, it is hoped that individuals, rather than simply waiting for information and acting passively, will seek out information and actively express their opinions.

In addition, public interest in hearing what scientists and engineers have to say is increasing: approximately 57% say they would like to hear discussions by scientists and engineers. Furthermore, over 70% of researchers say that they want the public to understand their research ( Fig. 21 ).

Fig. 21: does the public wish to get lectures from scientists? do researchers address public?

Researchers have the ability to convey the excitement of research as a career and the atmosphere of research workplaces. In this respect, it is vital for them to be known thoroughly by addressing the public. Still fresh in everyone's memory is that over 140,000 responses were received in response with Astronaut Chiaki Mukai's call for a second verse of Japanese traditional poem (Tanka) to complete the one she read during a broadcast from the Space Shuttle Discovery.

By addressing the public, researchers can establish two-way communications through which they can directly determine what the world expects of science and technology. Such knowledge is certain to provide ideas for new research.


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