Last week there was an interesting discussion over at the Slate Book Club beetween Michael Specter, author of the new book “Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives” and Chris Mooney that specifically talked about how to educate people about synthetic biology to prevent the irrational denialism that has affected other scientific endeavors. Both writers agreed that synthetic biology was going to be big, and that people needed to understand the benefits and risks right away, going so far as to say that Obama should convene a town hall meeting so that everyone could hear about it. I think it is tremendously important that people talk and learn about new and developing technologies, but all I could think about was how speculative it all is in the first place. This new article in The Scientist, about hype and promises in science that haven’t quite panned out as predicted tackles my reservations about the whole thing:
Of course, scientists have a strong incentive to make bold predictions—namely, to obtain funding, influence, and high-profile publications. But while few will be disappointed when worst-case forecasts fail to materialize, unfulfilled predictions—of which we’re seeing more and more—can be a blow for patients, policy makers, and for the reputation of science itself.
In 1995, for example, an expert panel on gene therapy convened by the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s then-director Harold Varmus2 concluded:
Expectations of current gene therapy protocols have been oversold. Overzealous representation of clinical gene therapy has obscured the exploratory nature of the initial studies, colored the manner in which findings are portrayed to the scientific press and public, and led to the widely held, but mistaken, perception that clinical gene therapy is already highly successful. Such misrepresentation threatens confidence in the field and will inevitably lead to disappointment in both medical and lay communities.
How can we discuss and promote synthetic biology without ending up with the same disappointing broken promises and skewed perception about hype over results? Is there a way to talk about how fascinating synthetic biology is without having to promise solutions to the the world’s most serious problems
? Is there a point to doing synthetic biology if we can’t solve them in the end?
I think there is, but we have to have to talk about the real risks and real benefits, on real time-scales. No one knows what the future is going to be like, but everyone does deserve an imformed say about it.
