I.c. The synthesis/creation of living organism

[Mdubbelboer]

Do other participants have other suggestions why many people intuitively think that the creation of life is ethically problematic?

I share the unconvenient feeling of ffurger and will try to make them more explicit here.

Synthetic biology will never be a solution to our daily problems, this is just a misperception. Synthetic biology is created by humans and we are part of nature with al it positive and negative aspects. If we recreate life, this does not mean that all the mistakes being made by nature will be eliminated. We will pass through our mistakes in the technology we create. Therefore it is an illusion to think that this new type of technology will be the ultimate solution to death and disease and fulfil the human wish of immortality. Eventually we will realise this type of technology will be the ultimate destruction of life and wish we had never created it. We can compare synthetic biology with making computer systems. Our computersystems are never perfect and always have leaks and can be infected by virusses etc. Why should it be any better if we create life?

The positive possibilities of this new technology are clear, but the problems lay not in the positive aspect but in de adverse aspects of the technology. In the end history teaches us new technologies will eventually be abused by certain groups of people or will evolve in ways we did not foresee. The only problem is, even with regulations in place certain, groups will pursue their dreams of artificial life and create it, in the end it seems to be part of human nature.

Science will never succeed in banning diseases and other medical issues. It is an illusion that with the creation of new life in the way synthetic biology has in mind, life will become better than it is now. Just like in life as it is now, new life will have problems of its own. New life will also cause mutations and bring forward diseases and medical problems. The only way we will be able to cope with illness and medical inconvenience is by accepting death is a necessary fact of life.

With kind regards

Michel Dubbelboer

[kanzure]

"Synthetic biology will never be a solution to our daily problems, this is just a misperception."
This is simply untrue. Synthetic biology will be a solution to our daily problems. This is because we are biological in nature; this means that our problems can be addressed through synthetic biology; indeed, we have already seen the fantastic success of medical science against fighting all sorts of diseases. Ignorance of these feats represents ignorance of basic culture that has emerged over the past few hundred years. I think it's entirely inexcusable.
"Synthetic biology is created by humans and we are part of nature with al it positive and negative aspects. If we recreate life, this does not mean that all the mistakes being made by nature will be eliminated. "
I don't think nature has made 'mistakes'. Rather, there are interesting alternatives that we can pursue through engineering and programming.
"Therefore it is an illusion to think that this new type of technology will be the ultimate solution to death and disease and fulfil the human wish of immortality."
Disease is biological in nature. Since we can access biology, we can solve disease.
"Eventually we will realise this type of technology will be the ultimate destruction of life and wish we had never created it."
What?
"Our computersystems are never perfect and always have leaks and can be infected by virusses etc. Why should it be any better if we create life? "
So you're talking about security in terms of organisms == computers. In that sense, sure, there are always ways to hack life. But when we talk about biosecurity, we're talking about the threats due to, say, viruses and what we can do to make sure we are prepared for engineered-problems that may take a while to solve ... meanwhile people are dying. Perhaps we can prepare now so that they don't do as much damage; this is done in the computer industry by having backups, by having computers that are off the network, computers that can come online after "the storm" (a botnet, like Storm).
"The only way we will be able to cope with illness and medical inconvenience is by accepting death is a necessary fact of life."
Sorry, that doesn't mean you shouldn't maximize and optimize life to the best. Ultimately, heat death of the universe might stop you, but I don't see why that means that illness has to be what stops you.

- Bryan

[stevensynbiosafe]

Synthesis is not a "field"; it is a research strategy. Synthesis presents a difficult goal that, through its pursuit, drags scientists across uncharted terrain where they are forced to encounter and solve unscripted problems. Thus, synthesis drives innovation and discovery in ways that analysis cannot. It is a recipe for discovery, and has been used for this purpose in chemistry for a century. Further, humankind has been creating new organisms for millennia, and that process has created problems, as well as been the basis for adaptation to new environments. Six billion people could not be living today on Earth had new organisms not been developed. Whether this level of population is desirable or sustainable is always open for discussion; one might claim that a human population this large, with its necessary extinction of other species, is inherently unethical, and attribute this to an unethical creation of the new organisms that enabled it. But the ethical issue is not new.

[scott.mohr]

____ I think a point of clarification is needed concerning the use of the term "playing God" to describe the **ethics** of SB. In my view ethics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the rights and wrongs of how humans treat one another. If creating a new "biomimetic" life form (one whose operating system runs on DNA, RNA and proteins, but whose developmental programs are unique) is to be judged on ethical grounds, the implication is that ethics includes a theological issue, namely the assertion that creation is God's prerogative and thus infringing on it is an "unethical" sacrilege. (Of course, if the novel organism is harmful to humans or likely to replace humans, ethics comes back into the picture.)
____ This is not a new issue, of course. The myth of Prometheus encapsulates the same notion of a hierarchy of rights with only the gods allowed to do certain things. Prometheus does not play by those rules, and depending on the ancient source, not only gets credit for bringing fire to humankind (probably the most important technological advance in all of human history), but also **makes humans** from clay (he was an early synthetic biologist!). The poem "Prometheus" written by J.W. Goethe in 1773 (at the height of the Enlightenment) expresses Prometheus' defiant, self-sufficient attitude and his scorn for Zeus, the chief deity. He extols reason over subservient fate, quite literally "playing God." The poem can be accessed in German and English translation at http://www.freeinquiry.com/prometheus.html.
____ Again, if we adopt a deistic framework to discuss the issue of the "ethics of synthetic life," it's easily possible to reach a counter-intuitive conclusion about what is natural (and thus, by the standards of those who object to scientists "playing God," a definition of what ought to be allowed). In this scheme, God -- the master clockmaker -- specifies the laws of mathematics, physics and chemistry that determine what can occur in this universe. She then provides a supply of matter and energy and lets the whole drama begin -- with a bang! It churns along for 12-15 billion years or so, and along the way life emerges from natural processes, develops via natural selection, and ultimately produces a clever creature, Homo sapiens. That particular expression of the universe's fecundity happens to have remarkable technical capacities thanks to a big brain, opposable thumbs, etc. But these humans are simply **natural creatures.** Therefore, whatever they (i.e., we) do is also an expression of the **natural capacity** of the evolving universe. And just as birds build nests, humans build houses. Beavers build dams and flood the landscape; so do humans. Temites build air-conditioned mounds; ants cultivate fungal gardens, etc. Are we to discriminate in such a way that whatever humans do beyond the confines of our bodies is considered unnatural, but bird nests, beaver dams, termite mounds, ant gardens (and other such objects) are "natural"?
____ Thus, following along the lines of this simple deistic scenario -- which probably approximates the Weltanschauung (world view) of many scientists, including the atheists who adopt the it except that they don't attribute the origin of the universe to a deity -- we can conclude that, in the final analysis,**human activity of all kinds,** including science and technology, **is natural.** Does that completely demolish the admonition of "don't play God?" Naturally, other scenarios would lead to different conclusions (since they would depend to a greater degree on faith and less on reason than simple deism). The admonition, however, has **one remaining merit**, even for died-in-the-wool deists and atheists. As we ought to appreciate, the biosphere that we depend on consists of many, complicated interactions. We may think that we can accurately predict the consequences of our actions with respect to living organisms -- but history tells a different story. Hence a sensible degree of respect for the precautionary principle should remain. It behooves us to ask, what if our assumptions (about a synthetic organism, for example) are wrong? Can we pull the plug? Can we stop our project before it spirals out of control? That **is** an ethical question.