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NanoEthics
Erschienen in: NanoEthics 3/2016

23.04.2016 | Original Paper

An Update of Public Perceptions of Synthetic Biology: Still Undecided?

verfasst von: Mirko Ancillotti, Virgil Rerimassie, Stefanie B. Seitz, Walburg Steurer

Erschienen in: NanoEthics | Ausgabe 3/2016

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Abstract

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 (bio)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: (1) an analysis of existing research on how media portray synthetic biology across 13 European countries and in the USA, (2) the Meeting of Young Minds, a public debate between prospective politicians and synthetic biologists in the Netherlands and (3) 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 (emphasized) and risks (downplayed), 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.
Vorheriger Artikel Exploring Political Views on Synthetic Biology in the Netherlands
Nächster Artikel Misconceptions of Synthetic Biology: Lessons from an Interdisciplinary Summer School

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Fußnoten
1
For more information, see http://​www.​ta-synbio-summerschool.​de/​. Accessed 12 January 2016.
 
2
For a more detailed discussion of the organization and results of this event, see Rerimassie (this volume).
 
3
Currently, the largest PYO is SGPJ, tied to the Reformed Political Party (SGP) with approximately 9000 members. The smallest is the much younger organization PINK!, which is tied to the animal welfare party (Partij voor de Dieren), with about 900 members [76].
 
4
The participating PYOs were the following: Young Democrats (linked to D66, the Liberal Democrats), DWARS (linked to GroenLinks, the Green Party), Young Socialists (linked to the PvdA, the Labour Party), PINK! (linked to the Partij voor de Dieren, the animal welfare-concerned Party for the Animals), CDJA (linked to CDA, the Christian Democrats), SGPJ (linked to SGP, the [Christian] Reformed Political Party) and PerspectieF (linked to ChristenUnie, the Christian Union) [75].
 
5
Due to time restraints, we did not engage with the iGEM teams as intensively as we did with the PYOs (when the trajectory with the PYOs started, the iGEM competition activities had already been underway for some time). Rather, together with the European iGEM committee, we reached out to iGEM teams that seemed to be excelling in their human practices activities. Eventually, we merely asked to appoint a spokesperson who would represent them during the debate. However, despite prior involvement, we assumed that their representatives could play an important role during the debate, given their knowledge of SB and human practices experiences.
 
6
The citizen panels were conducted under the supervision and coordination of Herbert Gottweis within the framework of work conducted for the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) in its function as partner of ERASynBio. The citizen panels were organized and conducted by Ursula Gottweis and Walburg Steurer. Viktoria Veith contributed through participant recruitment.
 
7
For a detailed description of citizen panel design, sample and topic guide, see [11].
 
8
The topic guide was inspired by those used in two engagement experiments carried out in the UK [37, 38]. The selection of example cases for the application of SB was inspired by a focus group study conducted by a group of researchers from the Chair of Ethics at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, which has yet to be published.
 
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Metadaten
Titel
An Update of Public Perceptions of Synthetic Biology: Still Undecided?
verfasst von
Mirko Ancillotti
Virgil Rerimassie
Stefanie B. Seitz
Walburg Steurer
Publikationsdatum
23.04.2016
Verlag
Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in
NanoEthics / Ausgabe 3/2016
Print ISSN: 1871-4757
Elektronische ISSN: 1871-4765
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-016-0256-3

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