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Facing up to Complexity: Implications for Our Social Experiments

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Abstract

Biological systems are highly complex, and for this reason there is a considerable degree of uncertainty as to the consequences of making significant interventions into their workings. Since a number of new technologies are already impinging on living systems, including our bodies, many of us have become participants in large-scale “social experiments”. I will discuss biological complexity and its relevance to the technologies that brought us BSE/vCJD and the controversy over GM foods. Then I will consider some of the complexities of our social dynamics, and argue for making a shift from using the precautionary principle to employing the approach of evaluating the introduction of new technologies by conceiving of them as social experiments.

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Notes

  1. Citing a search on "emergence," "properties," and "science" in Google Scholar that yielded more than 500,000 hits, Sandra Mitchell asks, "If the philosophical analyses that dismiss the reality of emergent properties are correct, then why have descriptions of emergent properties in science become so widespread?" (2009, 26)

  2. I say “reportedly,” because electronic access to the Federal Register only goes back to 1994 (59 FR). After several hours of poring over materials accessed through the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/ECFR?SID=f0b278762ebba10bc6cfa008b5f05fe5&page=simple, I was able to bring up nothing under “FR 57 22984” or variations thereof; “substantial equivalence” brought up 876 hits, including Title 21, Food and Drugs, Part 312 “Investigational New Drug Application” and Part 1107, regarding tobacco products, but nothing on a near screen related to food or genetic modification. Getting more specific with “genetic modification” I found listings under Title 7, Agriculture, to include a section aimed at preventing the creation of new “plant pests” through genetic engineering (Part 340), and in Part 357 “Control of Illegally Taken Plants,” a paragraph §357 defining “artificial selection” as “The process of selecting plants for particular traits, through such means as breeding, cloning, or genetic modification” [emphasis added]. A search under “GRAS” brought up, in Title 21: Food and Drugs, §184.1 “Substances added directly to human food affirmed as generally recognized as safe (GRAS)” brought up: “(d) The food ingredients listed as GRAS in part 182 of this chapter or affirmed as GRAS in part 184 or §186.1 of this chapter do not include all substances that are generally recognized as safe for their intended use in food. Because of the large number of substances the intended use of which results or may reasonably be expected to result, directly or indirectly, in their becoming a component or otherwise affecting the characteristics of food, it is impracticable to list all such substances that are GRAS. A food ingredient of natural biological origin that has been widely consumed for its nutrient properties in the United States prior to January 1, 1958, without known detrimental effects, which is subject only to conventional processing as practiced prior to January 1, 1958, and for which no known safety hazard exists, will ordinarily be regarded as GRAS without specific inclusion in part 182, part 184 or §186.1 of this chapter.” It goes on to say: (f) The status of the following food ingredients will be reviewed and affirmed as GRAS or determined to be a food additive or subject to a prior sanction pursuant to §170.35, §170.38, or §180.1 of this chapter: (1) Any substance of natural biological origin that has been widely consumed for its nutrient properties in the United States prior to January 1, 1958, without known detrimental effect, for which no health hazard is known, and which has been modified by processes first introduced into commercial use after January 1, 1958, which may reasonably be expected significantly to alter the composition of the substance. (2) Any substance of natural biological origin that has been widely consumed for its nutrient properties in the United States prior to January 1, 1958, without known detrimental effect, for which no health hazard is known, that has had significant alteration of composition by breeding or selection after January 1, 1958, where the change may be reasonably expected to alter the nutritive value or the concentration of toxic constituents… [emphases added].” In other words, it seems to say that only if such compositional alterations are known or expected (which will not be the case, of course, if they are deemed beforehand “substantially equivalent” or sufficiently similar to what is already GRAS) will the substance be reviewed, and then it may either be affirmed as GRAS or subjected to further regulation.

  3. “Stacked” transgenic plants have been reported to manifest proteins changed in ways falling outside the natural variability of the parent non-GMO landrace, accompanied by “major metabolic pathway alterations” and impacts on the expression of other genes in the recipient genome, in addition to differences from GM varieties containing only one introduced trait; see Agapito-Tenfen 2014.

  4. The details of how we do this exceeds the limits of this discussion, but Searle’s general formulation of how it works is through the iteration of “X counts as Y in context C,” such that paper strip X counts as money, Y, in context C, coming off a government printing press, an amount of money X’ counts as loan payment Y’ in context C’, your bank’s friendly lending office, and so on.

  5. There can, of course, be a science of how we humans act given the fact that we accept the entities that populate the belief system of modern economics.

  6. As contrasted with alternative methods for accomplishing the same goal through another technology, which he considers under condition (3).

  7. I remember the shock with which I discovered in the early 2000s both that nanoparticles were already being widely used in commercial products and that my own university was heavily involved in their development and "commercialization"; I also remember the consternation I felt upon showing my dermatologist an image of distorted mitochondria in cell culture after exposure to one such formulation of titanium dioxide (see Long et al. 2006) and learning that she had no idea if the sunscreens her spa was selling contained nanoparticles.

  8. For an example of a limited but very successful such conscious intervention, the collective decision by the people of Sweden to switch from driving on the left side of the road to driving on the right, see Kincaid (1986, 159–162).

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Hawkins, R. Facing up to Complexity: Implications for Our Social Experiments. Sci Eng Ethics 22, 775–814 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-015-9657-x

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