Within French epistemology the question is central whether the present can be a reference point for the history of science or whether scientific practices should be understood within their own historical context. Both positions are linked with problems: either it results in a ‘whig history’ written from the perspective of the victors or it leads to the accusation of relativism and to resistance from the scientists themselves. Isabelle Stengers claims that this resistance by scientists must be considered as an essential (...) element in the historiography of the sciences. She is part of a more recent generation of French philosophers of science, who build on the work of the earlier generation but with significant differences. Stengers interprets the scientist’s work as ‘in the service of history’: everyone must be forced to recognize their work not as the product of personal construction but as a necessary discovery in the history of science. The work of the historian of science is in conflict with the aims of the scientists themselves, who want to be seen as the norm of the present by which one should read the history of science. This service of history is not some external ideological factor, but an internal part of the scientific practice itself. The construction of the difference between the discovery of a pre-given fact and the construction of a fiction is for Stengers the core of the scientific practices. This use of history will be illustrated by the case of synthetic biology, as described by Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent. Synthetic biologists are invoking specific past or future scenario’s, such as that of synthetic chemistry or computer engineering, to legitimatize their current research projects and ambitions. From this perspective, the problematic tension between the past and the present is so hard to cope with because it is not merely a struggle among historians and philosophers of science, but also among the scientists themselves. (shrink)

This paper links two domains of recent interest in science and technology studies, complexity and ignorance, in the context of knowledge practices observed among synthetic biologists. Synthetic biologists are recruiting concepts and methods from computer science and electrical engineering in order to design and construct novel organisms in the lab. Their field has taken shape amidst revised assessments of life’s complexity in the aftermath of the Human Genome Project. While this complexity is commonly taken to be an immanent (...) property of biological systems, this article presents an epistemological view of complexity according to which complexity relates to a specific scientific theory or model and refers to that which exceeds the theory or model’s explanatory power. This epistemological view allows us to narrate a particular story about the changing relationship between biology and synthetic biology in the last decade and accounts for early knowledge practices in synthetic biology that “ignored” biology. This article further argues that while the failure of ignorance to produce clear-cut results for synthetic biologists has led practitioners back to biology, the entanglements between different pragmatic orientations and ways of knowing trouble the implications of this return for assessments of the complexity of biological systems. (shrink)

The comparison between natural evolution and the action of a tinkerer has become highly popular since its reintroduction by François Jacob at the end of the 1970s. It has been used as a weapon against the existence of an “intelligent design” as well as a way for synthetic biologists to promote their ambitious projects. I will describe the complex history of this metaphor, and examine its pertinence. Whereas Darwin considered it as a way to describe how evolution proceeded, Jacob (...) linked it with a description of the imperfections of organisms, while Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin criticized what they called the “Panglossian” vision of most evolutionary biologists. The distinction between the work of engineers and that of tinkerers is not obvious. There are limits to the process of evolution, but their alleged description so far reflects the limits of knowledge on the part of evolutionary biologists more than the existence of true barriers to the evolutionary process. And, in their work, synthetic biologists crucially need the optimizing action of natural selection. To give a definition of synthetic biology is no easy task; the false distinction drawn between the work of synthetic biologists and the action of evolution is of no help. (shrink)

The emerging field of synthetic biology, the designing and construction of biological parts, devices and systems for useful purposes, may simultaneously resolve some issues and raise others. In order to develop applications robustly and in the public interest, it is important to organize reflexive strategies of assessment and engagement in early stages of development. Against this backdrop, initiatives related to the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation have also appeared. This paper describes such an initiative: the construction of future (...) scenarios to explore the plausibility and desirability of potential synthetic biology innovations. We guided teams of synthetic biology students who participated in the large international Genetically Engineered Machines competition, in constructing scenarios aimed at exploring the plausibility and desirability of potential synthetic biology innovations. In this paper we aim to examine to what extent, and how, constructing such future scenarios contributes to RRI. In order to do so, we conducted observations and interviews to understand what kind of learning and reflection was promoted by constructing the scenarios in terms of four dimensions, which are discussed prominently in the literature on RRI: anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity and responsiveness. While we focus on how constructing future scenarios can contribute to strengthening RRI at a project level, we also consider how far our experiment may foster RRI in the iGEM competition in general, and perhaps even inspire constructive collaboration between ‘social scientists’ and ‘natural scientists’ in the context of larger scientific research programmes. (shrink)

Synthetic biologists aim to generate biological organisms according to rational design principles. Their work may have many beneficial applications, but it also raises potentially serious ethical concerns. In this article, we consider what attention the discipline demands from bioethicists. We argue that the most important issue for ethicists to examine is the risk that knowledge from synthetic biology will be misused, for example, in biological terrorism or warfare. To adequately address this concern, bioethics will need to broaden its (...) scope, contemplating not just the means by which scientific knowledge is produced, but also what kinds of knowledge should be sought and disseminated. (shrink)

The interests of synthetic biologists may appear to differ greatly from those of evolutionary biologists. The engineering of organisms must be distinguished from the tinkering action of evolution; the ambition of synthetic biologists is to overcome the limits of natural evolution. But the relations between synthetic biology and evolutionary biology are more complex than this abrupt opposition: Synthetic biology may play an important role in the increasing interactions between functional and evolutionary biology. In practice, synthetic (...) biologists have learnt to submit the proteins and modules they construct to a Darwinian process of selection that optimizes their functioning. More importantly, synthetic biology can provide evolutionary biologists with decisive tools to test the scenarios they have elaborated by resurrecting some of the postulated intermediates in the evolutionary process, characterizing their properties, and experimentally testing the genetic changes supposed to be the source of new morphologies and functions. This synthetic, experimental evolution will renew and clarify many debates in evolutionary biology: It will lead to the explosion of some vague concepts as constraints, parallel evolution, and convergence, and replace them with precise mechanistic descriptions. In this way, synthetic biology resurrects the old philosophical debate about the relations between the real and the possible. (shrink)

Many scientific models in biology are how-possibly models. These models depict things as they could be, but do not necessarily capture actual states of affairs in the biological world. In contemporary philosophy of science, it is customary to treat how-possibly models as second-rate theoretical tools. Although possibly important in the early stages of theorizing, they do not constitute the main aim of modelling, namely, to discover the actual mechanism responsible for the phenomenon under study. In the paper it is argued (...) that this prevailing picture does not do justice to the synthetic strategy that is commonly used in biological engineering. In synthetic biology, how-possibly models are not simply speculations or eliminable scaffolds towards a single how-actually model, but indispensable design hypotheses for a field whose ultimate goal is to build novel biological systems. The paper explicates this by providing an example from the study of alternative genetic systems by synthetic biologist Steven Benner and his group. The case will also highlight how the method of synthesis, even when it fails, provides an effective way to limit the space of possible models for biological systems. (shrink)

Biologists are nearing the creation of the first fully synthetic eukaryotic genome. Does this mean that we still soon be able to create genomes that are parts of an existing genetic lineage? If so, it might be possible to bring back extinct species. But do genomes that are synthetically assembled, no matter how similar they are to native genomes, really belong to the genetic lineage on which they were modelled? This article will argue that they are situated within the (...) same genetic lineage. To see why requires closely examining whether material overlap between parents and offspring is a necessary feature of biological reproduction. The processes used to create synthetic genomes shows that these processes are a form of scaffolded reproduction because they use external machinery and take ownership of the material parts used to create synthetic genomes. Closely examining these processes also reveals, surprisingly, that ‘synthetic reproduction’ can take place between entities that don’t participate in the same biological lineages. 1Introduction2The Argument for Lineage-less Genomes3Synthetic Eukaryotic Chromosomes and Material Overlap4Biological Reproduction, Material, and Information5Synthetic Reproductive Processes and Their Implications. (shrink)

Synthetic biologists are extremely concerned with responsible research and innovation. This paper critically assesses their culture of responsibility. Their notion of responsibility has been so far focused on the identification of risks, and in their prudential attitude synthetic biologists consider that the major risks can be prevented with technological solutions. Therefore they are globally opposed to public interference or political regulations and tend to self-regulate by bringing a few social scientists or ethicists on board. This article emphasizes that (...) ethics lies beyond prudence and requires a cultural evaluation of the modes of existence of the various microorganisms designed by synthetic biologists, independently of their potential applications. (shrink)

The aim of synthetic biology is to rationally design devices, systems, and organisms with desired innovative and useful functions (Slusarczyk, Lin, and Weiss 2012). To achieve this aim, synthetic biology uses a concept similar to engineering sciences: well-characterized and standardized modular biological building blocks are reassembled in a systematic and rational manner to generate complex devices and systems with a predicted function. In the past, molecular biological research in combination with intense work in new research areas like systems (...) biology and functional genomics revealed a large inventory of multifaceted modular biological parts that are now in the toolboxes of synthetic biologists. Due to .. (shrink)

The construction of synthetic life might appear to be the natural objective of the emerging discipline of synthetic biology. The situation, though, is not that simple. Plans to synthesize life appeared quite early, at the beginning of the 20th century (Bensaude-Vincent 2009; Deichmann 2009; Fox Keller 2002; Pereto and Catala 2007). Nor can synthetic biology be identified with work on the origin of life. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that a new, more integrated approach to the origin of (...) life appeared exactly when synthetic biology was emerging (Szostak, Bartel, and Luisi 2001).Most synthetic biologists have the more limited ambition of modifying existing organisms by giving them new functionalities. Synthetic .. (shrink)

Synthetic biology has a strong modal dimension that is part and parcel of its engineering agenda. In turning hypothetical biological designs into actual synthetic constructs, synthetic biologists reach towards potential biology instead of concentrating on naturally evolved organisms. We analyze synthetic biology’s goal of making biology easier to engineer through the combinatorial theory of possibility, which reduces possibility to combinations of individuals and their attributes in the actual world. While the last decades of synthetic biology (...) explorations have shown biology to be much more difficult to engineer than originally conceived, synthetic biology has not given up its combinatorial approach. (shrink)

Synthetic biology may be an important source of progress as well as societal and political conflict. Against this backdrop, several technology assessment organizations have been seeking to contribute to timely societal and political opinion-making on synthetic biology. The Rathenau Instituut, based in the Netherlands, is one of these organizations. In 2011, the institute organized a ‘Meeting of Young Minds’: a young people’s debate between ‘future synthetic biologists’ and ‘future politicians’. The former were represented by participants in the (...) international Genetically Engineered Machines competition, the latter by political youth organizations linked to Dutch political parties. The Rathenau Instituut found seven PYOs—including right wing, left wing, Green and Christian groups—willing to commit to an intensive process aimed at formulating a tentative partisan view on synthetic biology and discussing it with fellow PYOs and iGEM participants. Given the minimal amount of available data on how political parties understand synthetic biology, mapping the debate may provide valuable insights. In this article, I aim to provide such a mapping exercise and also to reflect on how and why the Rathenau Instituut organized the event. (shrink)

Morphological engineering is an emerging research area in synthetic biology. In 2008 “synthetic morphology” was proposed as a prospective approach to engineering self-constructing anatomies by Jamie A. Davies of the University of Edinburgh. Synthetic morphology can establish a new paradigm, according to Davies, insofar as “cells can be programmed to organize themselves into specific, designed arrangements, structures and tissues.” It is obvious that this new approach will extrapolate morphology into a new realm beyond the traditional logic of (...) morphological research. However, synthetic morphology is a highly idealized vision of morphology which derives its visionary ideas from morphological engineering and mathematical idealizations in order to understand the principles of molecular morphology. Thus, the question is, if this approach will help to understand morphogenesis better or if it will just enable biologists to engineer morphogenesis. The paper investigates the development of synthetic morphology and its relation to synthetic biology as well as its epistemic gains. (shrink)

Crossing the boundaries - between nature and artifact and between inanimate and living matter - is a major feature of the convergence between nanotechnology and biotechnology. This paper points to two symmetric ways of crossing the boundaries: chemists mimicking nature's structures and processes, and synthetic biologists mimicking synthetic chemists with biological materials. However to what extent are they symmetrical and do they converge toward a common view of life and machines? The question is addressed in a historical perspective. (...) Both biomimetic chemistry and synthetic biology can be described as descendants of an ambitious program developed by Stéphane Leduc who coined the phrase 'synthetic biology' in the early twentieth century. The main intention of this genealogy is to emphasize that although making life in a test tube is a recurrent project there are subtle nuances in the underlying metaphysical assumptions. This comparison is meant to contribute to a better understanding of the cultural issues at stake in the convergence between nano and biotechnologies. It suggests that the demarcation line between life and inanimate matter remains a hot issue, and that all traffics across the borders do not proceed from the same metaphysical assumptions. (shrink)

Synthetic biology aims to synthesize novel biological systems or redesign existing ones. The field has raised numerous philosophical questions, but most especially what is novel to this field. In this article I argue for a novel take, since the dominant ways to understand synthetic biology’s specificity each face problems. Inspired by the examination of the work of a number of chemists, I argue that synthetic biology differentiates itself by a new regime of articulation, i.e. a new way (...) of articulating the questions and phenomena it wants to address. Instead of describing actual existing biological systems, the field aims to describe biological possibilities. In the second part I corroborate this hypothesis through a comparison between early research in the field of the origins of life and contemporary synthetic biologists, who are not so much interested in the historical origin of life on Earth, but rather in a universal biology of the possible origins of any life whatsoever. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the notion of possibility in biology and demonstrates how synthetic biology can provide understanding on the modal dimension of biological systems. Among modal concepts, biological possibility has received surprisingly little explicit treatment in the philosophy of science. The aim of this paper is to argue for the importance of the notion of biological possibility by showing how it provides both a philosophically and biologically fruitful category as well as introducing a new practically grounded way for its (...) assessment. More precisely, we argue that synthetic biology can provide tools to scientifically anchor reasoning about biological possibilities. Two prominent strategies for this are identified and analyzed: the design of functionally new-to-nature systems and the redesign of naturally occurring systems and their parts. These approaches allow synthetic biologists to explore systems that are not normally evolutionarily accessible and draw modal inferences that extend in scope beyond their token realizations. Subsequently, these results in synthetic biology can also be relevant for discussions on evolutionary contingency, providing new methods and insight to the study of various sources of unactualized possibilities in biology. (shrink)

In 2014, an international group of scholars from various fields analysed the “societal dimensions” of synthetic biology in an interdisciplinary summer school. Here, we report and discuss the biologists’ observations on the general perception of synthetic biology by non-biologists who took part in this event. Most attendees mainly associated synthetic biology with contributions from the best-known public figures of the field, rarely mentioning other scientists. Media extrapolations of those contributions appeared to have created unrealistic expectations and irrelevant (...) fears that were widely disconnected from the current research in synthetic biology. Another observation was that when debating developments in synthetic biology, semantics strongly mattered: depending on the terms used to present an application of synthetic biology, attendees reacted in radically different ways. For example, using the term “GMOs” rather than the term “genetic engineering” led to very different reactions. Stimulating debates also happened with participants having unanticipated points of view, for instance biocentrist ethicists who argued that engineered microbes should not be used for human purposes. Another communication challenge emerged from the connotations and inaccuracies surrounding the word “life”, which impaired constructive debates, thus leading to misconceptions about the abilities of scientists to engineer or even create living organisms. Finally, it appeared that synthetic biologists tend to overestimate the knowledge of non-biologists, further affecting communication. The motivation and ability of synthetic biologists to communicate their work outside their research field needs to be fostered, notably towards policymakers who need a more accurate and technical understanding of the field to make informed decisions. Interdisciplinary events gathering scholars working in and around synthetic biology are an effective tool in addressing those issues. (shrink)

Synthetic biology (SynBio) covers two main areas: application engineering, exemplified by metabolic engi- neering, and the design of life from artificial building blocks. As the general public is often reluctant to embrace synthetic approaches, preferring nature to artifice, its immediate future will depend very much on the public’s reaction to the unmet needs created by the pervasive demands of sustainability. On the other hand, this reluctance should not have a negative impact on research that will now take into (...) account the existence of the multiple transitions that cells face over time. The ages of life—birth, development, maturation, senescence and death—reflect specific key transitions and have, until now, rarely been taken into account in SynBio designs. This results in a mismatch between novelty and the very long evolutionary time that led to the existing chassis [remember that this is the common term used to describe the cellular framework as seen by synthetic biologists (de Lorenzo & Danchin, 2008)]. It also implies that, in general, transitions between growth stages will be taken into account with the appro- priate embodiment of highly specific processes. This is particularly important when adapting new models to their host, whether natural or artificial. Adaptation fol- lows two stages, short-term accommodation of new entities and long-term assimilation into the cell as a whole. This requires discrimination between classes of entities. We suggest that proteins playing the essential role of Maxwell’ demons, here named Maxwell’s dis- criminators (MxDs) to refer to their original function, will permit the assimilation and accommodation of artificial constructs. As a consequence, we can foresee that class discrimination, beyond mere recognition, will be implemented in SynBio 2.0, leading to an authentic par- adigm shift (Kuhn, 1996), based on conceptions that embody information as a genuine currency of reality. (shrink)

Most of the reports on synthetic biology include not only familiar topics like biosafety and biosecurity but also a chapter on ‘ethical concerns’; a variety of diffuse topics that are interrelated in some way or another. This article deals with these ‘ethical concerns’. In particular it addresses issues such as the intrinsic value of life and how to deal with ‘artificial life’, and the fear that synthetic biologists are tampering with nature or playing God. Its aim is to (...) analyse what exactly is the nature of the concerns and what rationale may lie behind them. The analysis concludes that the above-mentioned worries do not give genuine cause for serious concern. In the best possible way they are interpreted as slippery slope arguments, yet arguments of this type need to be handled with care. It is argued that although we are urged to be especially vigilant we do not have sufficiently cogent reasons to assume that synthetic biology will cause such fundamental hazards as to warrant restricting or refraining from research in this field. (shrink)

A recurrent theme in the characterization of synthetic biology is the role of engineering. This theme is widespread in the accounts of scholars studying this field and the biologists working in it, in those of the biologists themselves, as well as in policy documents. The aim of this article is to open this black-box of engineering that is supposed to influence and change contemporary life sciences. Too often, both synthetic biologists and their critics assume a very narrow understanding (...) of what engineering is about, resulting in an unfruitful debate about whether synthetic biology possesses genuine engineering methodologies or not. By looking in more detail to the diversity of engineering conceptions in debates concerning synthetic biology, a richer perspective can be developed. In this article, I will examine five influential ways in which engineering is understood in these debates, namely engineering as applied science, as rational methodology, context-sensitive practice, cunning activity or design. The claim is first of all thus to argue that engineering must not be seen as something stable or characterized by a fixed essence. It rather has multiple meanings and interpretations. Secondly, the claim is that most of the debates on synthetic biology cannot be indifferent towards the question which conception of engineering is at play, since the specific questions and concerns that pop up depend to a great extent on the precise conception of engineering one has in account. Many of the existing debates around synthetic biology can thus be reinterpreted and readdressed once one is aware of which conception of engineering is at play. (shrink)

The topic of synthetic life has long been a subject for science fiction writers, philosophers, and even scientists. With the announcement in 2010 by renowned biologist J. Craig Venter that he and a team of scientists from the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) had created a bacterial cell with chemically synthesized genome, discussions of synthetic life were no longer just conjecture.Humans had assembled nonliving components to make a living cell (Gibson et al. 2010). I was one of (...) the leaders of that endeavor, and this article will be a first-person account of how we made our cell, along with my conjectures about what will come next in the new fields of synthetic biology and synthetic genomics.Scanning electron .. (shrink)

In the life sciences, biologists and philosophers lack a unifying concept of species—one that will reconcile intuitive demarcations of taxa with the fluidity of phenotypes found in nature. One such attempt at solving this “species problem” is known as Homeostatic Property Cluster theory (HPC), which suggests that species are not defined by singular essences, but by clusters of properties that a species tends to possess. I contend that the arbitrary nature of HPC’s kind criteria would permit a biological brand of (...) functionalism to inform species boundaries, thereby validating synthetic organisms as members of a species that do not belong. (shrink)

In the life sciences, biologists and philosophers lack a unifying concept of species—one that will reconcile intuitive demarcations of taxa with the fluidity of phenotypes found in nature. One such attempt at solving this “species problem” is known as Homeostatic Property Cluster theory, which suggests that species are not defined by singular essences, but by clusters of properties that a species tends to possess. I contend that the arbitrary nature of HPC’s kind criteria would permit a biological brand of functionalism (...) to inform species boundaries, thereby validating synthetic organisms as members of a species that do not belong. (shrink)

The discourse on the fundamental issues raised by synthetic biology, such as biosafety and biosecurity, intellectual property, environmental consequences and ethical and societal implications, is still open and controversial. This, coupled with the potential and risks the field holds, makes it one of the hottest topics in technology assessment today. How a new technology is perceived by the public influences the manner in which its products and applications will be received. Therefore, it is important to learn how people perceive (...) synthetic biology. This work gathers, integrates and discusses the results of three studies of public perceptions of synthetic biology: an analysis of existing research on how media portray synthetic biology across 13 European countries and in the USA, the Meeting of Young Minds, a public debate between prospective politicians and synthetic biologists in the Netherlands and the experiences of citizen panels and focus groups in Austria, the UK and the USA. The results show that the media are generally positive in their reports on synthetic biology, rather unbalanced in their view of potential benefits and risks, and also heavily influenced by the sources of the stories, namely scientists and stakeholders. Among the prospective Dutch politicians, there were positive expectations as well as very negative ones. Some of these positions are also shared by participants in public dialogue experiments, such as not only the demand for information, transparency and regulation but also a sense of resignation and ineluctability of scientific and technological progress. (shrink)

The phrase ‘synthetic biology’ is used to describe a set of different scientific and technological disciplines, which share the objective to design and produce new life forms. This essay addresses the following questions: What conception of life stands behind this ambitious objective? In what relation does this conception of life stand to that of traditional biology and biotechnology? And, could such a conception of life raise ethical concerns? Three different observations that provide useful indications for the conception of life (...) in synthetic biology will be discussed in detail: 1. Synthetic biologists focus on different features of living organisms in order to design new life forms, 2. Synthetic biologists want to contribute to the understanding of life, and 3. Synthetic biologists want to modify life through a rational design, which implies the notions of utilising, minimising/optimising, varying and overcoming life. These observations indicate a tight connection between science and technology, a focus on selected aspects of life, a production-oriented approach to life, and a design-oriented understanding of life. It will be argued that through this conception of life synthetic biologists present life in a different light. This conception of life will be illustrated by the metaphor of a toolbox. According to the notion of life as a toolbox, the different features of living organisms are perceived as various rationally designed instruments that can be used for the production of the living organism itself or secondary products made by the organism. According to certain ethical positions this conception of life might raise ethical concerns related to the status of the organism, the motives of the scientists and the role of technology in our society. (shrink)

The picture of synthetic biology as a kind of engineering science has largely created the public understanding of this novel field, covering both its promises and risks. In this paper, we will argue that the actual situation is more nuanced and complex. Synthetic biology is a highly interdisciplinary field of research located at the interface of physics, chemistry, biology, and computational science. All of these fields provide concepts, metaphors, mathematical tools, and models, which are typically utilized by (...) class='Hi'>synthetic biologists by drawing analogies between the different fields of inquiry. We will study analogical reasoning in synthetic biology through the emergence of the functional meaning of noise, which marks an important shift in how engineering concepts are employed in this field. The notion of noise serves also to highlight the differences between the two branches of synthetic biology: the basic science-oriented branch and the engineering-oriented branch, which differ from each other in the way they draw analogies to various other fields of study. Moreover, we show that fixing the mapping between a source domain and the target domain seems not to be the goal of analogical reasoning in actual scientific practice. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is a broad term covering multiple scientific methodologies, technologies, and practices. Pairing biology with engineering, synbio seeks to design and build biological systems, either through improving living cells by adding in new functions, or creating new structures by combining natural and synthetic components. As with all new technologies, synthetic biology raises a number of ethical considerations. In order to understand what these issues might be, and how they relate to those covered in ethics literature on (...) synbio, we conducted an interview study with practicing synthetic biologists affiliated with a synthetic biology centre in Australia. Scientists identified a range of ethical challenges germane to the field, including precarious employment, pressures from industry, gender inequity, and the negative effects of the hyping of synbio. These challenges differed markedly from those identified in the ethics literature, whose treatment of the harms and benefits of synbio remains largely speculative and abstract. In our discussion of the pragmatic, every day ethical issues synthetic biologists face, we illustrate how issues of waste or research integrity play pivotal roles in everything from lived experiences in the laboratory, to long-term research trajectories guiding the field. In a confirmation of the ethical relevance of our participant’s views on the field, we argue that the subjects they raise must be included in any ethical analysis of synbio as a field. (shrink)

Current ethical analysis tends to evaluate synthetic biology at an overview level. Synthetic biology, however, is an umbrella term that covers a variety of areas of research. These areas contain, in turn, a hierarchy of different research fields. This abstraction hierarchy—the term is borrowed from engineering—permits synthetic biologists to specialise to a very high degree. Though synthetic biology per se may create profound ethical challenges, much of the day-to-day research does not. Yet seemingly innocuous research could (...) lead to ethically problematic results. For example, Dolly the sheep resulted from a long series of research steps, none of which presented any ethical problems. The atomic bomb was developed as a result of Einstein’s uncontentions theoretical research that proved the equivalence of matter and energy. Therefore it would seem wise for ethicists to evaluate synbio research across its subfields and through its abstraction hierarchies, comparing and inter-relating the various areas of research. In addition, it would be useful if journals that publish synbio papers require an ethical statement from authors, as standard practice, so as to encourage scientists to constantly engage with ethical issues in their work. Also, this would allow an ethical snapshot of the state of the research at any given time to exist, allowing for accurate evaluation by scientists and ethicists, regulators and policymakers. (shrink)

A commitment to ‘making’—creating or producing things—can shape scientific and technological fields in important ways. This article demonstrates this by exploring synthetic biology, a field committed to making use of advanced techniques from molecular biology in order to make with living matter. I describe and analyse how this field’s ‘drive to make’ shapes its organisational, methodological, epistemological, and ontological character. Synthetic biologists’ ambition to make helps determine how their field demarcates itself, sets appropriate methods and practices, construes the (...) purpose and character of knowledge, and views the things of the living world. Using empirical data from extensive ethnographic and interview-based research, I discuss the importance of seemingly simple and unimportant commitments—in this case, a focus on the making of things rather than the production of knowledge claims. I conclude by examining the ramifications of this line of research for studies of science and technology. (shrink)

British biologist and science populariser J. B. S. Haldane was known as a contrarian, whose myriad ideas and beliefs would shift to oppose whomever he chose to argue with. Yet Haldane's support for synthetic food remained remarkably stable throughout his life. This article argues that Haldane's engagement with synthetic food during the 1930s and 1940s was shaped by his frustration with the status and direction of scientific research in Britain. Drawing upon the Haldane Papers, I reconstruct how (...) Haldane's interest in synthetic food emerged from the biochemical and physiological optimism of the early 20th century. His mid-20th-century writings were an opportunity for Haldane to voice his political opinions. He attempted to erase the conceptual divide between farm and factory, maintained that food shortages were a capitalist construct, and criticised British colonialism. By pointing out the failure of existing economic systems and governments to develop synthetic food, Haldane made the case that food production should be placed under the control of biologists. (shrink)

The parts-based engineering approach in synthetic biology aims to create pre-characterised biological parts that can be used for the rational design of novel functional systems. Given the context-sensitivity of biological entities, a key question synthetic biologists have to address is what properties these parts should have so that they give a predictable output even when they are used in different contexts. In the first part of this paper I will analyse some of the answers that synthetic biologists (...) have given to this question and claim that the focus of these answers on parts and their properties does not allow us to tackle the problem of context-sensitivity. In the second part of the paper, I will argue that we might have to abandon the notions of parts and their properties in order to understand how independence in biology could be achieved. Using Robert Cummins’ account of functional analysis, I will then develop the notion of a capacity and its condition space and show how these notions can help to tackle the problem of context-sensitivity in biology. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is described as a new field of biotechnology that models itself on engineering sciences. However, this view of synthetic biology as an engineering field has received criticism, and both biologists and philosophers have argued for a more nuanced and heterogeneous understanding of the field. This paper elaborates the heterogeneity of synthetic biology by clarifying the role of design and the variability of design methodologies in synthetic biology. I focus on two prominent design methodologies: rational (...) design and directed evolution. Rational design resembles the design methodology of traditional engineering sciences. However, it is often replaced and complemented by the more biologically-inspired method of directed evolution, which models itself on natural evolution. These two approaches take philosophically different stances to the design of biological systems. Rational design aims to make biological systems more machine-like, whereas directed evolution utilizes variation and emergent features of living systems. I provide an analysis of the methodological basis of these design approaches, and highlight important methodological differences between them. By analyzing the respective benefits and limitations of these approaches, I argue against the engineering-dominated conception of synthetic biology and its “methodological monism”, where the rational design approach is taken as the default design methodology. Alternative design methodologies, like directed evolution, should be considered as complementary, not competitive, to rational design. (shrink)

Ernst Mayr''s historical writings began in 1935 with his essay Bernard Altum and the territory theory and have continued up through his monumentalGrowth of Biological Thought (1982) and hisOne Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought (1991). Sweeping in their scope, forceful in their interpretation, enlisted on behalf of the clarification of modern concepts and of a broad view of biology, these writings provide both insights and challenges for the historian of biology. Mayr''s general intellectual formation (...) was guided by the GermanBildung ideal, with its emphasis on synthetic and comprehensive knowledge. His understanding of how to write history was inspired further by the example of the historian of ideas Arthur Lovejoy. Some strengths and limitations of this approach are explored here through attention to Mayr''s treatment of the French biologist J.-B. Lamarck. It is contended that Mayr''s contributions to the history of biology are not restricted to his own very substantial historical writings but also include his encouragement of other scholars, his development of an invaluable archive of scientific correspondence, and his insistence that historians who write about evolution and related subjects acquire an adequate understanding of the principles of Darwinian biology. (shrink)

The Human Genome Project is nearing completion, and shortly we will have access to the complete genetic sequence of an average human being. Hopes are high that the sequence will contribute profoundly to medicine in particular, but also to our understanding of our evolutionary past. Of course, detractors have long insisted that because the HGP represents a victory for formalism in biology, determining the function of DNA sequences will remain an outstanding problem for at least the next several decades. Moreover, (...) it is not clear that having the complete sequence will be significantly useful to biologists seeking to understand gene function in the first place. What can we expect in the postgenomic era? ;I reject the very idea that a complete, encapsulated sequence of a human genome is foundational to biological understanding. I set my investigation within the framework of the ancient debate between preformationists and epigenecists. I survey and conceptually analyze arguments on both sides, especially as they relate to the separation of genetics and embryology in the early part of the twentieth century. I identify modern variants of both preformationism and epigenesis, and note their reconciliation in the form of a Modern Consensus on development established after the neo-Darwinian Synthesis in biology in the 1940s. ;Drawing on recent work in molecular and developmental biology, I challenge the seeming intuitiveness of the Modern Consensus and its subsumption of developmental concerns under the aegis of molecular genetics. I then propose and defend an alternative synthesis of preformationism and epigenesis, and of genetics and developmental biology, according to which development does not reduce to mere gene activation. I underscore the practical benefit of my perspective through a lengthy discussion of the psychiatric genetics approach to schizophrenia. (shrink)

Synthetic biologists try to engineer useful biological systems that do not exist in nature. One of their goals is to design an orthogonal chromosome different from DNA and RNA, termed XNA for xeno nucleic acids. XNA exhibits a variety of structural chemical changes relative to its natural counterparts. These changes make this novel information‐storing biopolymer “invisible” to natural biological systems. The lack of cognition to the natural world, however, is seen as an opportunity to implement a genetic firewall that (...) impedes exchange of genetic information with the natural world, which means it could be the ultimate biosafety tool. Here I discuss, why it is necessary to go ahead designing xenobiological systems like XNA and its XNA binding proteins; what the biosafety specifications should look like for this genetic enclave; which steps should be carried out to boot up the first XNA life form; and what it means for the society at large. (shrink)

Synthetic biologists design and engineer organisms for a better and more sustainable future. While the manifold prospects are encouraging, concerns about the uncertain risks of genome editing affect public opinion as well as local regulations. As a consequence, biosafety and associated concepts, such as the Safe-by-design framework and genetic safeguard technologies, have gained notoriety and occupy a central position in the conversation about genetically modified organisms. Yet, as regulatory interest and academic research in genetic safeguard technologies advance, the implementation (...) in industrial biotechnology, a sector that is already employing engineered microorganisms, lags behind. The main goal of this work is to explore the utilization of genetic safeguard technologies for designing biosafety in industrial biotechnology. Based on our results, we posit that biosafety is a case of a changing value, by means of further specification of how to realize biosafety. Our investigation is inspired by the Value Sensitive Design framework, to investigate scientific and technological choices in their appropriate social context. Our findings discuss stakeholder norms for biosafety, reasonings about genetic safeguards, and how these impact the practice of designing for biosafety. We show that tensions between stakeholders occur at the level of norms, and that prior stakeholder alignment is crucial for value specification to happen in practice. Finally, we elaborate in different reasonings about genetic safeguards for biosafety and conclude that, in absence of a common multi-stakeholder effort, the differences in informal biosafety norms and the disparity in biosafety thinking could end up leading to design requirements for compliance instead of for safety. (shrink)

Biotechnologies – synthetic biology in particular – are sometimes blamed for playing God or manifesting hubris, that is, for evincing the vicious attitude of transcending the limits of human agency. In trying to create living organisms, we would adopt an attitude that is immoral for human beings. In this article, I want to show that this blame is unwarranted. I distinguish two aspects of the argument, which claims that it is impossible for human beings to create life and immoral (...) to attempt it. I argue that if we adopt a conception of what life consists of in agreement with the scientific world view, there is no place for hubris. Finally, I maintain that even if we accept a non-scientific conception of life (a vitalist or a supernatural one), we are not in a position to formulate the blame against synthetic biologists because what they do cannot contravene this vitalist or supernaturalist view. (shrink)

A science is an intellectual activity defined by its mechanisms that prevent its scientists from always reaching the conclusions that they set out to reach. Such mechanisms are needed because, if scientists are given full control over what hypotheses they select, what data they discard, and what results they publish, they can communicate any conclusion that they desire. Synthesis, by setting a grand challenge, forces scientists across uncharted territory where they encounter and solve unscripted problems. When theory is inadequate, the (...) synthesis fails, and fails in a way that cannot be ignored. Therefore, synthesis drives discovery and paradigm change in ways that simple hypothesis testing cannot. Here, we describe the discoveries that emerged when synthetic biologists were challenged to create an alternative genetic system that has different molecular structures than DNA and RNA. In pursuit of this particular “grand challenge,” synthesis forced the recognition that the community did not know as much about the double helix as it had constructively assumed. In general, a field of science having access to synthesis as a research strategy can create knowledge even if its practitioners do not fit the ideal of a dispassionate, advocacy-free scientist. (shrink)

ArgumentWhat does “life” become at a moment when biological inquiry proceeds by manufacturing biological artifacts and systems? In this article, I juxtapose two radically different communities, synthetic biologists and Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef crafters (HCCR). Synthetic biology is a decade-old research initiative that seeks to merge biology with engineering and experimental research with manufacture. The HCCR is a distributed venture of three thousand craftspeople who cooperatively fabricate a series of yarn and plastic coral reefs to draw attention to (...) the menace climate change poses to the Great Barrier and other reefs. Interpreting these two groups alongside one another, I suggest that for both, manufacturing biological artifacts advances their understandings of biology: in a rhetorical loop, they build new biological things in order to understand the things they are making. The resulting fabrications condense scientific and folk theories about “life” and also undo “life” as a coherent analytic object. (shrink)

Recent efforts in soft robotics and Artificial Life are attempting to construct homeostatically functioning machines with ‘feeling’ analogues. Such robots are designed to be ‘vulnerable’ and, thus, depart from traditional approaches to machine design and construction. In this paper, I explore a representative proposal by Antonio Damasio and Kingson Man, and ask how we can understand the deconstruction of ‘life’ in Derrida, Stiegler, Malabou and Wills to relate to such efforts. I argue that the adoption of biological and phenomenological principles (...) in machine design calls for attention to the precise extent that it may not result in robots that adhere either to biological or to mechanical models. It is with this admission, of the essentially unknowable character of what may result from these efforts, that deconstruction can assist roboticists and synthetic biologists today. (shrink)

Those who want to observe, analyze, and make judgments about synthetic biology need to think about where to stand in the world so as to get an informed sense of which new capacities and incapacities are actual and which matter. They will need something like “upstream ethics”—but not because they want to “get ahead” of the imagined onslaught of the technology. After all, the imagined capacities may remain entirely overstated. They will need upstream ethics because the question of which (...) new capacities and incapacities are being brought into the world is unlikely to be found at the level of what bioengineers say about the work that they are doing. It is more likely to be found in the everyday spaces of practice in which engineers face the painstaking labor of making living beings that work.Those who want upstream ethics will also need to observe the relation between talk of synthetic biology and the extra‐technological effects such talk sets into motion—from the mobilization of capital to the activation of new power relations, anxieties, and displacements. It's in this motion that the biotechnical dreams generated by synthetic biology do their primary work. Any democratic deliberation about synthetic biology will need to operate as much on the ethical and political artifacts of these dreams as on any novel organisms synthetic biologists hope to build. (shrink)

Synthetic biology, as a research field, brings together molecular life scientists, computational biologists, and social scientists to engineer biological systems toward societally desired goals. Given the field’s broad multidisciplinarity and relatively young age, innovative educational methods are required to provide students with the needed background knowledge to push the field forward in the future. The international Genetically Engineered Machine competition is such an example where education and high-level research merge, providing the synthetic biology field with trained students, new (...) ideas, and novel results. In the 2021 edition alone, 343 teams from across the world completed the competition to tackle societal problems with synthetic biology. As Wageningen University & Research celebrates 10 years of participation in iGEM, we share our thoughts and experiences on supervising iGEM teams, which is especially relevant to organizers of current and new teams, and also others interested in the iGEM competition. (shrink)

Herbert Spencer, Victorian philosopher, biologist, sociologist and political theorist, one of the founders of Social Darwinism and author of the phrase 'survival of the fittest', was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1902, losing out to Theodor Mommsen. Spencer left his post at The Economist in 1857 to focus on writing his ten-volume System of Synthetic Philosophy, a work that offers an ethics-based guide to human conduct to replace that provided by conventional religious belief. Published in (...) 1879, this volume seeks to demonstrate that social evolution tends towards greater individualism, altruism and co-operation. Spencer argues that it is possible to establish rules of right conduct on a scientific basis, and declares that this work is the culmination of his life's study. He was anxious to publish it outside the planned order of the System, because he feared that his death would prevent its completion. (shrink)

In this paper the concept of supervenience is employed to explain the relationship between fitness as employed in the theory of natural selection and population biology and the physical, behavioral and ecological properties of organisms that are the subjects of lower level theories in the life sciences. The aim of this analysis is to account simultaneously for the fact that the theory of natural selection is a synthetic body of empirical claims, and for the fact that it continues to (...) be misconstrued, even by biologists, for a tautological system. The notion of supervenience is then employed to provide a new statement of the relation of Mendelian predicates to molecular ones in order to provide for the commensurability and potential reducibility of Mendelian to molecular genetics in a way that circumvents the theoretical complications which appear to stand in the way of such a reduction. (shrink)

In recent decades the expression "molecular biology" has progressively disappeared from journals, and no longer designates new chairs or departments. This begs the question: does it mean that molecular biology is dead, and has been displaced by new emerging disciplines such as systems biology and synthetic biology? Maybe its reductionist approach to living phenomena has been substituted by one that is more holistic. The situation, undoubtedly, is far less simple. To appreciate better what has happened it is necessary to (...) acknowledge the following: the intial project of molecular biologists was not a reductionist one, but an attempt to naturalize the phenomena of life by using the epistemological principles of physics as a model; and, it is necessary to distinguish the early stages of molecular biology, and the later aggregating process which gave it its present characteristics. Only one of these characteristics, the importance of the informational vision, has been seriously challenged in recent years. But it is obvious that the ambition of most early molecular biologists to discover simple rules and principles explaining all of biological facts has vanished. The pendulum has now moved toward the study of the diversity generated by a long evolutionary history. (shrink)

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), Victorian philosopher, biologist, sociologist and political theorist, one of the founders of Social Darwinism and author of the phrase 'survival of the fittest', was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1902, losing out to Theodor Mommsen. Spencer left his post at The Economist in 1857 to focus on writing his ten-volume System of Synthetic Philosophy, a work that offers an ethics-based guide to human conduct to replace that provided by conventional religious belief. Published (...) in 1879, this volume seeks to demonstrate that social evolution tends towards greater individualism, altruism and co-operation. Spencer argues that it is possible to establish rules of right conduct on a scientific basis, and declares that this work is the culmination of his life's study. He was anxious to publish it outside the planned order of the System, because he feared (wrongly) that his death would prevent its completion. (shrink)

A high profile context in which physics and biology meet today is in the new field of systems biology. Systems biology is a fascinating subject for sociological investigation because the demands of interdisciplinary collaboration have brought epistemological issues and debates front and centre in discussions amongst systems biologists in conference settings, in publications, and in laboratory coffee rooms. One could argue that systems biologists are conducting their own philosophy of science. This paper explores the epistemic aspirations of the field by (...) drawing on interviews with scientists working in systems biology, attendance at systems biology conferences and workshops, and visits to systems biology laboratories. It examines the discourses of systems biologists, looking at how they position their work in relation to previous types of biological inquiry, particularly molecular biology. For example, they raise the issue of reductionism to distinguish systems biology from molecular biology. This comparison with molecular biology leads to discussions about the goals and aspirations of systems biology, including epistemic commitments to quantification, rigor and predictability. Some systems biologists aspire to make biology more similar to physics and engineering by making living systems calculable, modelable and ultimately predictable—a research programme that is perhaps taken to its most extreme form in systems biology’s sister discipline: synthetic biology. Other systems biologists, however, do not think that the standards of the physical sciences are the standards by which we should measure the achievements of systems biology, and doubt whether such standards will ever be applicable to ‘dirty, unruly living systems’. This paper explores these epistemic tensions and reflects on their sociological dimensions and their consequences for future work in the life sciences. (shrink)

Bergmann’s rule and Allen’s rule played important roles in mid-twentieth century discussions of adaptation, variation, and geographical distribution. Although inherited from the nineteenth-century natural history tradition these rules gained significance during the consolidation of the modern synthesis as evolutionary theorists focused attention on populations as units of evolution. For systematists, the rules provided a compelling rationale for identifying geographical races or subspecies, a function that was also picked up by some physical anthropologists. More generally, the rules provided strong evidence for (...) adaptation by natural selection. Supporters of the rules tacitly, or often explicitly, assumed that the clines described by the rules reflected adaptations for thermoregulation. This assumption was challenged by the physiologists Laurence Irving and Per Scholander based on their arctic research conducted after World War II. Their critique spurred a controversy played out in a series of articles in Evolution, in Ernst Mayr’s Animal Species and Evolution, and in the writings of other prominent evolutionary biologists and physical anthropologists. Considering this episode highlights the complexity and ambiguity of important biological concepts such as adaptation, homeostasis, and self-regulation. It also demonstrates how different disciplinary orientations and styles of scientific research influenced evolutionary explanations, and the consequent difficulties of constructing a truly synthetic evolutionary biology in the decades immediately following World War II. (shrink)

De Vries' mutation theory has not stood the test of time. The supposed mutations of Oenothera were in reality complex recombination phenomena, ultimately explicable in Mendelian terms, while instances of large-scale mutations were found wanting in other species. By 1915 the mutation theory had begun to lose its grip on the biological community; by de Vries' death in 1935 it was almost completely abandoned. Yet, as we have seen, during the first decade of the present century it achieved an enormous (...) popularity. As this paper has tried to suggest, one of the principal reasons for this was that de Vries' theory served as a banner around which a whole crowd of disaffected Darwinians or anti-Darwinians could rally. However, not all of those who favored de Vries did so for quite the same reasons. Underlying the multitude of views ran several common threads: a dissatisfaction with current Darwinian theory born out of misunderstanding natural selection, a general misunderstanding of the nature of species, and a prejudice against speculative, nontestable theories in biology.Supporters of de Vries were not the only opponents of Darwinism, nor was the mutation theory the only alternative to natural selection. In the early twentieth century a number of theories had been proposed to explain away the problems which Darwin had left unsolved. There was the idea of orthogenesis, championed by the American paleontologists Cope, Osborn and others; organic selection (or orthoplasy) was championed by M. M. Baldwin and C. Lloyd Morgan; there were the concepts of convergent evolution proposed by Hermann Friedmann, the theory of physiological selection by John George Romanes, and the concepts of reproductive divergence by H. M. Vernon. Virtually none of these men either accepted or were strong supporters of the de Vriesian theory, for each had his own particular ‘ism” to advocate as the major factor in evolution. The existence of a large number of such theories, each purporting to be the explanation, was characteristic of evolutionary theory at the turn of the century. It is to a large extent the emphasis on such fragmentary concepts that retarded development of the comprehensive theory of evolution which emerged in the 1920's and 1930's. For the historian, however, a study of these alternative theories is instructive in trying to understand the inherent difficulties which Dawwinian theory posed to biologists at the time. De Vries' mutation theory serves historically as a mirror to reflect the critical mood of a generation hostile to the theory of natural selection.It has often been claimed that it was impossible to understand the mechanism of natural selection until it could be placed in genetic and mathematical terms. It is certainly true that great strides have been made in population genetics and the treatment of evolutionary concepts with mathematical tools in the last forty years. But the very people who developed the genetical and mathematical approach to evolution were already convinced of the essential correctness of Darwinian theory before they started. Advances in an understanding of Mendelian heredity aided greatly in solving one important issue for evolutionists: the origin of variations. And the rigor with which selection acted could best be studied by observing changes in gene frequencies (calculated mathematically) over a number of generations. But as this paper has shown, two of the basic problems which biologists faced in evaluating Darwinian theory at the turn of the century-the nature of species, and the criteria of what constituted an acceptable explanation in biological science-could not be answered directly by mathematics. What mathematical and genetical theory did do was to help convince the skeptics of the validity of the Darwinian proposition.The change in explanatory criteria which many hailed as de Vries' most important contribution to evolutionary theory seems to have been part of a general emergence of twentieth-century biology from the domination of theorizers in the nineteenth. It also marked the emergence of America from the domination of biological, and particularly evolutionary, influence of Europeans. The change occurred in three areas: in the kinds of questions asked: testable versus non-testable; in the kind of data sought: quantitative versus qualitative; and in the kinds of theories proposed: analytical and reductive—the attempt to see complex processes in terms of simpler components-as opposed to synthetic and speculative. Although ultimately wrong in his idea, de Vries and his theories rode high on the wave of “experimentalism” which was the harbinger of a new era in evolutionary theory. (shrink)