[ExI] Synthetic biology and the proactionary principle in The Economist

[Bryan Bishop]

Synthetic biology: And man made life;
Artificial life, the stuff of dreams and nightmares, has arrived
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=16163154

See below for a review of the proactionary principle, too.

"""
TO CREATE life is the prerogative of gods. Deep in the human psyche,
whatever the rational pleadings of physics and chemistry, there exists
a sense that biology is different, is more than just the sum of atoms
moving about and reacting with one another, is somehow infused with a
divine spark, a vital essence. It may come as a shock, then, that mere
mortals have now made artificial life.

Craig Venter and Hamilton Smith, the two American biologists who
unravelled the first DNA sequence of a living organism (a bacterium)
in 1995, have made a bacterium that has an artificial genome—creating
a living creature with no ancestor (see article). Pedants may quibble
that only the DNA of the new beast was actually manufactured in a
laboratory; the researchers had to use the shell of an existing bug to
get that DNA to do its stuff. Nevertheless, a Rubicon has been
crossed. It is now possible to conceive of a world in which new
bacteria (and eventually, new animals and plants) are designed on a
computer and then grown to order.

That ability would prove mankind’s mastery over nature in a way more
profound than even the detonation of the first atomic bomb. The bomb,
however justified in the context of the second world war, was purely
destructive. Biology is about nurturing and growth. Synthetic biology,
as the technology that this and myriad less eye-catching advances are
ushering in has been dubbed, promises much. In the short term it
promises better drugs, less thirsty crops (see article), greener fuels
and even a rejuvenated chemical industry. In the longer term who knows
what marvels could be designed and grown?

On the face of it, then, artificial life looks like a wonderful thing.
Yet that is not how many will view the announcement. For them, a
better word than “creation” is “tampering”. Have scientists got too
big for their boots? Will their hubris bring Nemesis in due course?
What horrors will come creeping out of the flask on the laboratory
bench?

Such questions are not misplaced—and should give pause even to those,
including this newspaper, who normally embrace advances in science
with enthusiasm. The new biological science does have the potential to
do great harm, as well as good. “Predator” and “disease” are just as
much part of the biological vocabulary as “nurturing” and “growth”.
But for good or ill it is here. Creating life is no longer the
prerogative of gods.
Children of a lesser god

It will be a while, yet, before lifeforms are routinely designed on a
laptop. But this will come. The past decade, since the completion of
the Human Genome Project, has seen two related developments that make
it almost inevitable. One is an extraordinary rise in the speed, and
fall in the cost, of analysing the DNA sequences that encode the
natural “software” of life. What once took years and cost millions now
takes days and costs thousands. Databases are filling up with the
genomes of everything from the tiniest virus to the tallest tree.

These genomes are the raw material for synthetic biology. First, they
will provide an understanding of how biology works right down to the
atomic level. That can then be modelled in human-designed software so
that synthetic biologists will be able to assemble new constellations
of genes with a reasonable presumption that they will work in a
predictable way. Second, the genome databases are a warehouse that can
be raided for whatever part a synthetic biologist requires.

The other development is faster and cheaper DNA synthesis. This has
lagged a few years behind DNA analysis, but seems to be heading in the
same direction. That means it will soon be possible for almost anybody
to make DNA to order, and dabble in synthetic biology.

That is good, up to a point. Innovation works best when it is a game
that anyone can play. The more ideas there are, the better the chance
some will prosper. Unfortunately and inevitably, some of those ideas
will be malicious. And the problem with malicious biological
inventions—unlike, say, guns and explosives—is that once released,
they can breed by themselves.

Biology really is different

The Home Brew computing club launched Steve Jobs and Apple, but
similar ventures produced a thousand computer viruses. What if a
home-brew synthetic-biology club were accidentally to launch a real
virus or bacterium? What if a terrorist were to do the same
deliberately?

The risk of accidentally creating something bad is probably low. Most
bacteria opt for an easy life breaking down organic material that is
already dead. It doesn’t fight back. Living hosts do. Creating
something bad deliberately, whether the creator is a teenage hacker, a
terrorist or a rogue state, is a different matter. No one now knows
how easy it would be to turbo-charge an existing human pathogen, or
take one that infects another type of animal and assist its passage
over the species barrier. We will soon find out, though.

It is hard to know how to address this threat. The reflex, to restrict
and ban, has worked (albeit far from perfectly) for more traditional
sorts of biological weapons. Those, though, have been in the hands of
states. The ubiquity of computer viruses shows what can happen when
technology gets distributed.

Thoughtful observers of synthetic biology favour a different approach:
openness. This avoids shutting out the good in a belated attempt to
prevent the bad. Knowledge cannot be unlearned, so the best way to
oppose the villains is to have lots of heroes on your side. Then, when
a problem arises, an answer can be found quickly. If pathogens can be
designed by laptop, vaccines can be, too. And, just as “open source”
software lets white-hat computer nerds work against the black-hats, so
open-source biology would encourage white-hat geneticists.

Regulation—and, especially, vigilance—will still be needed. Keeping an
eye out for novel diseases is sensible even when such diseases are
natural. Monitoring needs to be redoubled and co-ordinated. Then,
whether natural or artificial, the full weight of synthetic biology
can be brought to bear on the problem. Encourage the good to outwit
the bad and, with luck, you keep Nemesis at bay.
"""

In other words, The Economist was writing about the proactionary
principle, which goes something like this: "People’s freedom to
innovate technologically is highly valuable, even critical, to
humanity. This implies several imperatives when restrictive measures
are proposed: Assess risks and opportunities according to available
science, not popular perception.  Account for both the costs of the
restrictions themselves, and those of opportunities foregone.  Favor
measures that are proportionate to the probability and magnitude of
impacts, and that have a high expectation value.  Protect people’s
freedom to experiment, innovate, and progress. [...] Let a thousand
flowers bloom! By all means, inspect the flowers for signs of
infestation and weed as necessary. But don’t cut off the hands of
those who spread the seeds of the future."

with more elaboration here:
http://www.extropy.org/proactionaryprinciple.htm

In past cultures (and indeed still in some cultures to this day) we
prayed to the gods or elemental powers of the world to please not
reign plagues and death upon us. Maybe we're not past that particular
mental picture of the world; we still blame each other and the
elements for our limitations and existential risks. How do we make
sure a system doesn't fail- regardless of what type of threat and risk
we perceive (in this case, biological)? So far the public discourse
has helped form an answer to this question and more, such as the
proactionary principle. Here's to hoping for more of the same..

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507