Sam, not quite three and
a half, was stomping through the street-side puddles of an Arizona spring. In a playful mood, too, I called out the
warning, “Watch out for puddle gators!”
“Daddy, there is no such
thing as puddle gators.”
“Wouldn’t it be cool if
there were?”
“YES!”
Sam and I continued to
discourse on the natural history of puddle gators. We agreed that they should be vicious
predators, but while I envision them as salamanders with an attitude, he
imagines them as microscopic, perhaps a little like the water bear he’d met
through his book of poems about pond life.
I created the puddle
gator, knowing that it would entertain Sam.
But I have deep ambivalences about the research agenda of synthetic
biology – a line of inquiry that could, eventually, make puddle gators a
reality. Designing a bacterium that
turned sunlight and free carbon dioxide into a liquid fuel could be a great
boon, at least until a wrenching transition past combustion is completed
(perhaps with the assistance of organisms that – like corals – can fix carbon
dioxide into materials for construction rather than combustion).
Microscopic or
macroscopic, however, puddle gators could be only playthings or ecological
intrusions. Some of the creatures
designed at the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM)
competition, organized to inspire students across the globe in synthetic
biology, have at least the whiff of puddle gator to them. (iGEM has begun a more intensive effort to
integrate ethics into its competition, but more work needs to be done.)
These ambivalences
reverse themselves as well. A useful new
organism provides fewer if any net benefits if issues of ownership or IP are
not well resolved or if we cannot have confidence in its use in the face of
unanticipated consequences, e.g., through such techniques as safety-by-design
but also through sound insurance and liability policies. And doing stuff because it’s cool – in a
carefully controlled environment with plenty of contextual instruction – can
help encourage creativity, human flourishing, and a set of capacities to
address larger problems.
But fostering curiosity
should not foster hubris. I’m thrilled
with Sam’s early love of the natural world and the way he melds his imagination
with it, and I often lament that “natural historian” or “natural philosopher”
is not a career open to him. Synthetic
biologist, likely, will be, and so I also lament the continuing
short-sightedness of many current practitioners. For now, while Sam is still learning the
rules of social behavior along with the names of the bugs in our yard, such
fantasy is cool. But for the day he
splices his first gene, I hope that he will have already learned that “Wouldn’t
it be cool if…?” is not sufficient justification.
About the Author: David Guston is
co-director of CSPO, director of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at
ASU, and a professor of political science.
