Synthetic biology is not a particularly new idea. Scientists and engineers have drawn comparisons between living things and state of the art technological systems for many years, and tried to “recreate” living things using that technology. In the mid 1700’s, industrial mechanization was changing the world, and Jacques de Vaucanson was trying to make mechanical life. His digesting duck was a duck shaped automaton that could eat and digest seeds, pooping just like a real duck. Unfortunately, it was actually a scam duck, with poop from real ducks hidden in a secret compartment that would come out a specified time after “eating” the seeds so there was no real digestion going on.
As our technologies have changed, so too has our knowledge of biology and our attempts at synthetic life. Digital artificial life, robotics and artificial intelligence are starting from technology and trying to get to life, while current synthetic biology starts from life and is trying to get to technology.
