"Thing that one believes to work exactly as described and surely not to have harmful side effects".
That a quite clear category for mathematical proof, on the other hand humans are complex systems and there the halting problem with doesn't give you "surely" when it comes to understanding what a complex system does.
I just found this on slashdot:
"U.S. Views of Technology and the Future - Science in the next 50 years" by the Pew Research Center
This is interesting esp. in comparison to the recent posts on forecasting which focussed on expert forecasts.
What I found most notable was the public opinion on their use of future technology:
Don't they know Eutopia is Scary? I'd guess if these technologies really become available and are reliable only the elderly will be inable to overcome their preconceptions. And everybody will eat artificial meat if it is cheaper, more healthy and tastes the same (and the testers say confirm this).