Drew Endy & Jim Thomas “Synthetic Biology Debate”
November 18th, 02008 by Stewart BrandMonday November 17, 02008
Terms of biocontainment
“I want to develop tools that make biology easy to engineer,” Drew Endy began. The first purpose is better understanding fundamental biological mechanisms through “learning by building.” The toolkit of Synthetic Biology starts with DNA construction and ascends through DNA parts, to devices, to standardized systems. An organism’s DNA code, and therefore the organism, can be digitally uploaded, stored, distributed, and downloaded. Life forms are programmable. So far 3,500 standard “BioBrick” parts have been developed for free distribution, and the number is growing geometrically. The number of amateur and student bioengineers also is growing geometicallly.
“There are 20,000 edible plant species,” Endy noted. “At present we eat only 30.” Synthetic biology can help diversify agriculture. Or how about engineering a gourd that can grow into a living house?
Endy concluded with five questions… Should teenagers practice genetic engineering? (Yes.) Should military weapons involve biotechnology? (No.) Should BioBrick parts be patented or freely shared? (Free.) Will biohackers be good or bad? (Good, if we help.) Should genetic engineers sign their work and publish it? (Yes.)
Jim Thomas asked Endy how he would defend against commercial interests locking up Synthetic Biology with patents? Endy said the best hope is building an open-source community that grows faster than businesses and out-innovates them.
Thomas began his statement by pointing out that it usually takes a whole generation to understand a new technology, so he urges moving slowly and cautiously, but Synthetic Biology is advancing at breakneck speed, and the window of opportunity to have effective public discussion and control is closing.
He cited the history of synthetic chemicals, which began in mid-19th century. The technology quickly became highly concentrated in an oligarchy of monopolistic companies, and then it was easliy commandeered by government in wartime. I.G. Farben supplied the poison gas for the death camps. “Powerful technology in an unjust world is likely to exacerbate the injustice.”
Thomas said he worries when he hears comments like, “Anything that can be made by a plant can be made by a microbe.” If that’s played out, it means the death knell for everyone who works in agriculture, a vast economic restructuring. There’s so much novelty coming so fast from Synthetic Biology, no predictive models or regulatory models can hold them. He recommends these new tools be strictly contained so there is no release of new life forms into the biosphere, and there should be no commercialization of the technology at all.
Endy asked Thomas if it’s okay to make anything in a bioreactor vat? Thomas said, “Yes, beer.”
For different reasons, both debaters wanted to see Synthetic Biology kept from domination by commercial patents. For Thomas, it would lead to unjust monopoly answering only to profit. For Endy, it would paralyze open-ended research.
–Stewart Brand
November 18th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
[…] attended the Synthetic Biology Debate put on by The Long Now Foundation, and walked out scratching our heads… (in a good […]
November 20th, 2008 at 7:56 am
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November 23rd, 2008 at 3:55 pm
[…] responsibilities that comes with the work. I had such an opportunity a few nights ago at the Synthetic Biology Debate hosted by The Long Now. I witnessed an engaging dialog on the open and active development of […]
November 25th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
The future “products” of synthetic biology cannot be engineered to remain in co-existence with, or subservient to any current species on Earth (including humans) because the central dogma of evolution requires that only the fittest survive.
The anticipation, or perhaps the misguided hope that envisions humans (or scientists) to be able to control “synthesized life” is based on the misconception about what it takes to create life.
The proponents of synthetic biology believe that there is a utility function to be derived by “engineering life”. Perhaps, but they fail to disclose that this could only be efficiently and economically accomplished by means of selection, rather than by screening for such a function. While screening for a new utility function poses little risk, selecting for a new utility function from a library of “synthetic” individual genetic variations is dangerous. The intrinsic difference between the processes of selection and screening would result in only two possible outcomes.
Should the screening method be used, one cannot expect to derive any sufficiently justifiable new utility function because we do not yet have sufficient information to design life rationally.
In contrast, the termination of many current species, including possibly humans is virtually predictable should the selection method be used to circumvent human inability to design life rationally. Once a library of engineered organisms, rather than an individual “new” species would be introduced into an ecosystem in an assisted attempt to select for a new utility function, the unfair survival advantage of the “new creation” is virtually guaranteed. Hence, only the fittest survive.
One needs to re-think that value proposition of “synthetic biology”. People of means, with all thy getting get understanding.
December 2nd, 2008 at 3:45 am
The audio - http://fora.tv/media/rss/Long_Now_Podcasts/podcast-2008-11-17-synth-bio-debate.mp3
December 11th, 2008 at 11:27 am
The tools for “modifying biology” that were mentioned during the seminar were never used to “synthesize autonomous biological parts or tools”. The extrapolations drawn between past performance of molecular biology and the proposed rational design of life are a priori inconsistent because life cannot be defined by such linear thinking.
Also, to be consistent with reality, if one makes an argument in favor of access to the tools of molecular biology for teenagers, as was done by the speaker, one should not object to making the nuclear weapon components to be universally accessible. Such argument is not accepted to any informed person. Proponents of “synthetic biology” can make their arguments today because no biological weapons have yet been used to the same degree as nuclear weapons.
The concept of rebuilding nature with “tools” is self-inconsistent and dangerous to all life forms, including venture capitalists of financiers of this proposed non-sense.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
[…] Synthetic Biology: Drew Endy debates Jim thomas at the longnow foundation seminars on longterm thinking (mp3) […]
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:10 am
An article in Physorg about home genetic engineering sent in by Steve Kurtz:
http://www.physorg.com/news149485258.html
February 16th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
“the central dogma of evolution requires that only the fittest survive.”
That is incorrect. Evolutionary pressure permits the survival of species which are *sufficiently adequate*, as opposed to only the “fittest” species.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:09 am
[…] Drew Endy and Jim Thomas and the synthetic biology debate […]