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Team:INSA-Lyon/Project/Stage3/Strategy
From 2010.igem.org
Medias and Public speak about SynBio
In the way to see how much people know about SynBio, Eleonore Pauwels, research scholar working in the foresight and governance project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C., has made a public investigation for the “Ethical Aspects of Synthetic Biology” table-round, organized by the European Union in 2009. It appears that SynBio just begin to be an integrative process.
The first way to introduce SynBio to people is the newspapers. During the last few years, the number of articles published in American or European press has been increasing. And Europe is more concerned than the United States: more than 100 articles published in European press in five years, whereas about 50 in the USA. In Europe, France and United Kingdom are the leaders.
However, they have a different approach to SynBio. The US articles refer more about benefits of SynBio, and the topics are focused on Energy and Health. The European vision is more prudent: they prefer focusing on the ratio benefits/risks, in environment and energetic domains. And these differences get higher when they evoke the type of risks. American Medias just focus on the biosecurity, while European ones write about biosafety, biosecurity and ethics.
Despite the facts that newspapers are trying to make SynBio a popular knowledge, focusing on people’s preoccupations, this subject doesn’t seem to be attractive. In an investigation realized in the US, more than 70% of the interrogated persons had never heard about SynBio. Ignorance is one of the big problems of SynBio because when people don’t know about something, they’re scared and cautious about it. And their principal preoccupation is the ratio benefits/risks. . Moreover, people can give importance to a fact they hear in medias for example, and that is a prejudice for SynBio and genetic modification. People have been informed of some scientific failures and as they know the limits and the safety of SynBio, they stay very cautious. Currently, nobody really knows if SynBio is safe and can have limits…
In our opinion, people are afraid about scientific progress. Because it’s complicated, and it appears to have some catastrophic consequences, people don’t trust very much in the scientists, in spite of the communication in the newspapers or the conferences.
Reading people interview, SynBio appears like the new madness of the scientists, who want to play God and don’t care about ethics and people. Man likes controlling everything, and be able to control life is certainly the most powerful capacity. And we know how much Man loves power… Not only scientists by the way, since SynBio and its consequences imply everybody, from Politicians to citizens.
That’s why ethical framework is important to reassure people and give back some trust in science, and especially biology. All the polemics about GM should be avoided if some ethical works had been realized. But now it’s time to have a new start, and make SynBio a way to develop an integrative science, with the help of the political community.
