‘Hype’ might be more likely built up around the latest boyband, but many emerging technologies also rely on good marketing to bring in investment and support. Science might not get the queues (apart from the Apple store) but in the same way Apple has fumbled with the iPhone 6, many technologies are subject to a major backlash. So are emerging technologies being wounded by their own grand claims?
The queue at the Covent Garden Apple store for the iPhone 6 on release day. Science is universal, right? Well, maybe it’s not that simple. Science is different everywhere. Whereas the actual scientific information may be the same, the social, political, and economic factors that surround science mean that it can be different across the world. One notable example of this is the Thalidomide disaster of the early 1960s.
