As the race to build life from scratch pushes on, hyperbole drowns out nuanced discussion. We need more wide-ranging dialogue

EXCITING but terrifying. Powerful but scary. This is what some say about the emerging field of synthetic biology. Not surprising, perhaps, for an initiative that aims to "create life from scratch", to "make life better" and to "make biology easier to engineer".

The goals of synthetic biology are certainly ambitious: to produce a toolbox of standard biological parts with well-characterised functions that can be put together in combinations that may not exist in nature in order to perform human-designed functions outside the laboratory. Some hope to make the parts and the knowledge of how to assemble them accessible to all. The overall aim is to make the engineering of biology a routine process that can be put to use in many industries, with no need for highly specialised skills.

Most ethical, policy and media discussions about synthetic biology start from the assumption that these aims have already been achieved: that biology has become easy to engineer for whatever ends we choose, that the toolbox is available to any student or potential terrorist, that dangerous organisms and powerful bioweapons are easy to make, and that no effective regulation is possible. The ability of synthetic biologists to overcome serious scientific and technological challenges is taken for granted, and the economic, legal, social and political conditions for the uptake of these technologies are ignored.

Commentators instead focus on potential reckless use or misuse, overestimate the pathogenic possibilities, and worry about deep questions such as: "Do we have the right to play God?". These worries are the flip side of grand claims about synthetic biology's imminent ability to solve challenges in health, environment and energy. Utopias and dystopias seem to be the only scenarios possible.

This way of framing discussions is unhelpful. It is an example of "speculative ethics" that distracts us from less exciting but more pressing questions. What are synthetic biologists actually doing? How easy, or difficult, is it proving? What applications are they realistically going to develop in the short to medium term? What is their intended purpose, and to what extent could these contribute to the public good?

How, then, to proceed? Synthetic biologists have been impressively open to collaborations with the social sciences, law, arts and humanities, and open to debates with critical groups. In the UK, for example, social scientists have been participating in synthetic biology research programmes from the outset.

We are engaged in such partnerships and work closely with synthetic biologists so that together we can better understand the promises and challenges. We aim to help them reflect on why they are doing what they are doing, and to encourage them to open up such reflections to people outside their labs. In so doing, we try to avoid the pitfalls of speculative ethics and - perhaps idealistically - influence the kind of synthetic biology that is developed.

Science is creative, exciting and future-oriented and most synthetic biologists, like most people, do want to "make life better". But this means different things to different people, and even among synthetic biologists there are different views about what research is most valuable and which directions should be pursued.

As "embedded" social scientists, we routinely witness fascinating, nuanced discussions among synthetic biologists that acknowledge the complexities and uncertainties involved in their research. Sadly, these often disappear when synthetic biologists present their work in official public dialogues - or to journalists.

Read more from the original source:
Let's get real on synthetic biology