The public attitude toward synthetic biology is one of the most
important aspects, influencing its future development by determining
the commercial application and funding.
For this reason, the psychological part of the human practice project
of the Heidelberg team 2010 focused in proving the relationship
between people’s knowledge of synthetic biology and its acceptance. To
prove this relationship we invited 71 participants and divided them
into three groups which got different kind of knowledge. Afterward,
the participants had to fill in a questionnaire referring their
acceptance.
The philosophical part considers the problem of public acceptance and
perception of synthetic biology from a more general point of view: the
question is, if, with the actual terms currently used in synthetic
biology, a critical public discussion could even be possible. To
consider this question some central terms like “artificial cell” or
“living machine” were analyzed, which are semantically paradox itself:
how can something be alive and dead at the same time? How is it
possible to have something, invented by humans and at the same time
developed evolutionary?
The human practice team not only considered the problematically
relationship between society and synthetic biology in general it also
focused on the competition itself.
We tried to answer the questions if animal experiments (like they were
conducted by our team) were ethically justified, if in general, these
testing were acceptable for a collegiate field of research like iGEM
and if the competition can handle the responsibility that comes along
with such experiments.
But why is the analysis of all this (knowledge, terms, and animal
testing) necessary? There have been made lots of surveys by past iGEM
teams and almost uncountable ethical reflections. So, what is the
difference to our project this year? Well, never before had a team
invited two neutral experts, studying psychology and philosophy, to
work on the human practice project. Furthermore, the past surveys were
neither representative nor methodically correct and with this have no
explanatory power. The ethical considerations were superficially and
mostly limited to questions of security and safety which are commonly
clarified. You will notice the difference.
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