Risky Business
The September 28th issue of The New Yorker contains an article worthy of note. In “A Life of its Own – Where will synthetic biology lead us?1“, Michael Specter, a New Yorker staff writer, leads readers along a yellow brick road assessment of the potential risks and benefits of bioengineering. His description of Frankensteinian science is fascinating, but when it comes his analysis of the economics and practical risks of the technology, I can only say, there are “risks”, and then there are “RISKS!” 2
New Yorker illustration accompanying article "A Life of its Own", 9/28/09
Specter cuts right to the chase in explaining a reductive world view that dominates much of contemporary science. He implies that developments in decoding DNA can be likened to reverse engineering low level, machine language computer code. Once we have decompiled the code sequence, we can repackage the machine instructions into a higher level, user friendly, programming language, and begin piecing together new genetic variations that can serve our every wish and desire.
For those uncomfortable with computer language analogy, he offers up the idea of Lego blocks that can assembled in myriad ways to create new life forms. This digital imagery — blocks of code and Lego blocks — entails a problematic view of the world that I discussed in my post, “Reductive Hubris“, some months back. The reductive digital analogy of decoding the low-level building blocks of life in order to engineer synthetic life, is worse than fallacious reasoning, it is a dangerously seductive illusion that entails unknown and potentially catastrophic risks.
The picture Specter paints using quotes from various investigators, is one in which enterprising humans overcome the limitations imposed by Darwinian selection by engineering new life forms. He leaves the problem of creating life from inanimate materials open. Maybe we will and maybe we won’t. It enough, in his view, that we can alter existing life forms by “cutting and pasting” genetic material. If we can create E. Coli that smells like mint, then we can create other life forms that exhibit other desirable traits — cures for disease, non-polluting bio-fuels, and even more beautiful and smarter children.
Specter correctly argues that our drive toward genetic innovation is hardly unprecedented. As Darwin acknowledged in the first chapter of his “Origin of Species”, the processes of plant hybridization, animal husbandry, and domestication, are interventions of the same kind. The difference is that in breeding species that serve our desires, we must rely on random variation. When we use genetic engineering, we cut to the chase. Rather than waiting for random variation to present us with something useful, we decide what we want, and make it so.
So what’s the big deal?
In his article, Specter quotes MIT researcher Drew Endy, whom he describes as “…among the most compelling evangelists of synthetic biology”. Says Endy,
What if we could liberate ourselves from the tyranny of evolution by being able to design our own offspring?”
Throughout the article Specter gives lip service to what he sees as the common objections to the genetic engineering enterprise. Should we play God? Who gets access to the technology? What about evil applications? What about the problems of ownership and profit? Then he proceeds to answer these objections, saying,
“Still, censoring the pursuit of knowledge has never really worked….”
He quotes Rob Carlson, another researcher, as comparing the regulation of genetic research to Prohibition.
“What happened when the goverment restricted the production of alchol? Crime rose dramatically”.
In other words, when it becomes illegal to engineer new life, only criminals will be able to do so.
Specter and the many others who live in the thrall of powerful “science”, confound two important ideas.
The first is the idea of “science”, which uses a systematic methodology to explain and predict the observable world. The second is the idea of “technology” that seeks to employ scientific findings in order to influence the course of events for fun and profit. These two ideas, scientific inquiry and technological innovation, are not the same. Scientific inquiry is driven by a desire to understand things better — the dog wags the tail. Technological inquiry is driven by a desire to produce results — the tail wags the dog.
Each of these endeavors is useful, but the scientific method is designed to produce ever-improving knowledge by way of greater predictive power. while the technological enterprise produces substantive facts on the ground.
So in predictive knowledge, there is useful understanding and little harm, but in technology, there is real risk. Specter quotes Endy again,
“We need to develop solutions by doing them. The potential is great enough, I believe, to convince people it is worth the risk”.
“Worth the risk”. What is the worth and what is the risk? Answering these questions involves imperfect predictive knowledge and a moral/ethical assessment of what is at stake. Consider the following example.
The process of curious inquiry led us an imperfect understanding of both fire and nuclear energy. In both cases, our curiosity and methods of inquiry enabled the creation and use of technologies that served our intentions. And insofar as our imperfect knowledge permitted at any given point in history, we developed and employed our knowledge in ways that worked within the limits of what we understood at the time, to be acceptable risk.
In the case of fire, the impact and potential of our combustible inventions emerged slowly. Over the course of the ages, we warded off predators and cooked foods. Then we burned fields for agriculture. Then we assailed forts with burning oil and stuffed fast burning concoctions into small metal chambers to fire high-speed projectiles at each other. Then we stuffed fast burning stuff into engines to turn the wheels of the industrial revolution. Then we waged wars in which millions were killed with increasingly efficient combustion.
Was there risk in our fire-breathing technological innovation? All along the way, to the extent of our knowledge, there were predicted risks against which we took reasonable precautions. Getting burned while cooking became an acceptable risk. Having dynamite explode in our hands became an acceptable risk. Warring for control of diminishing supplies of fossil fuels became an acceptable risk. Now we have come to understand that our fire-breathing love affair with combustion technology has, all along the way, been contributing to atmospheric changes that are inexorably leading toward global warning. If only we had had the knowledge to foresee such a trend, we might have moderated and modified our use of combustion well before the die of global warning was cast. Of course, we had no way of knowing until we had mastered the technologies of global observation and climate modeling.
Where the consequences of our fiery technological innovation will take us now is a matter of vigorous debate. Has our previously uniformed and reckless use of combustion technology already precipitated our end in fire — or ice?
Nuclear innovation unfolded at a rate that was exponentially greater than the unfolding of fire, and the forces in play were exponential greater. In my lifetime, the nuclear age moved from equations on chalk boards to an arsenal of weapons that some say can annihilate humankind. It has produced innovations for generating power without combustion — and toxic waste that insofar was we know, cannot be neutralized — only hidden from sight. Someday will there be a nuclear war extinction event? Will there be another Chernobyl of even greater proportions? Will the nuclear waste we have hidden underground, leech into our water supplies? In the long run, if we fail to rein in our application of this technology, it is probable that one or more of these things will happen. In our dalliances with atomic energy, we are at the moment, unquestionably out of our depth. Is proceeding with the widespread implementation of nuclear technology worth the risk? What are the stakes?
The confounding of science and technology causes the power of predictive knowledge to take a back seat to unbridled technological risk taking and profiteering. Where science and ever improving knowledge points toward uncertainty, technologists seduce us with Lego set promises of highly profitable godlike powers, increasing at an increasing rate.
Although he seems incapable of understanding this, Specter himself, makes my point when he says,
“Because what preoccupies our finest (bioengineering) minds today will be a seventh-grade science project in five years. Or three years.”
Do you find our elementary school ability to predict the consequences of employing a technology for creating synthetic life forms, reassuring? Or does our admittedly puny understanding council caution of the highest order when creating facts on the ground?
We are well passed the trivial risks of playing with fire. The risks associated with today’s technologies are exponentially greater than simple combustion . The upshot is that we need to begin to regulate the implementation of technology when the stakes are high and the risks great. Then we must get on with a unfettered process of scientific inquiry that can bring the risks of technology within predictable bounds!
Footnotes ——-
