Synthetic Biology Analysed by Margret Engelhard

Author:Margret Engelhard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

This interpretation envisages the possibility of synthetic biology having incalculable and thus uncontrollable consequences, as Margret Engelhard has pointed out. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice-interpretation is named after the poem by Goethe in which a magician’s pupil uses his master’s tricks but turns out to be unable to control what he has created. The apprentice enchants a broom to fetch water in buckets—but he does not know how to stop it and so more and more water floods the floor. “Spirits that I’ve cited/My command ignore”, he shouts in despair; but luckily his master appears and stops the broom. In this version, the ‘playing God’ argument emphasizes that we might not be able to control the outcome of the process. Does synthetic biology lead us to uncontrollable forces and thus to risks that are too great? Can synthetic biology guarantee that it will be able to control newly-created living organisms? After all, qua being alive, these new organisms potentially have a strong dynamic of growth, proliferation, and evolution. Like the waters flooding everywhere after the broom has been enchanted, we can imagine new organisms polluting our environment or displacing others organism, with no experienced sorcerer around to stop them.

In this interpretation, the argument touches on (and transgresses) the risk problems discussed above: synthetic biology might have uncontrollable effects. We have already discussed that it is nearly impossible to make, at present, a proper risk assessment; we simply know too little about the possible interactions of new life-forms with the environment. The sorcerer’s apprentice reminds us of our methodological limitations in prediction. Like the apprentice, we are much better at bringing new things about than in controlling and limiting their effects.

There is, indeed, a serious problem when we act in ignorance of consequences; and this problem is substantial in the case of synthetic biology. We would still argue that this does not necessitate an entirely new ethics of synthetic biology. Jonas reminds us that our technological abilities are rather often not matched with an ability to anticipate (let alone control) global effects in the long run. (Extant examples include human-induced climate change, the problem of radioactive waste, and the damage caused by human-introduced non-native species into habitats.) One might, however, wonder whether this problem has reached a new magnitude in the case of synthetic biology. Let us therefore turn to “acting under uncertainty”.

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