The public does not believe that engineers and scientists, let alone business entrepreneurs, place society's welfare ahead of their own ambitions. This is not surprising and whether the situation is any worse today than it has ever been is open to question, but things have changed so much in technology over the last few decades that the question must be reassessed. Technologies have become so complex that few but the originators understand their workings, and the majority, because they understand so little, regard them with growing suspicion. What do we do about this? Can the damage done by arrogant but inaccurate assertions about BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) in the 1990s, and nuclear waste in the 1960s and 1970s, be overcome?
