382 18 Synthetic Biology: From Genetic Engineering 2.0 to Responsible Research and Innovation
- The debate on self-regulation of science.
- All the discussions would be on “a comprehensive, interdisciplinary and inter-
contextual” basis.
18.2.2.4 Netherlands
The societal issues around SB were studied by the Netherlands Commission on
Genetic Modification (COGEM). Their report published in 2010 analyzed the
developments in SB and intended to answer the questions on when and how
governments would have to anticipate the public debate on SB in order to prepare
the future developments in the field [40]. In the Netherlands, the emergence of
SB was subject to a public debate, which seemingly reiterated the old debates on
biotechnology.
High controversies are always raised for new technologies with high expecta-
tions, where SB is no exception. It was believed that there was a gap between the
technical expectations and the reality, as no concrete SB applications had yet
reached the market. A problem identified was that at a time when the hype was
dominated and reported by media, little information about specific societal
implications was available, and later on when this information was available, the
topic disappeared from the media and the public debate.
The COGEM report concluded that thus “technology assessment needs to
facilitate the societal-ethical debate when media attention, and thus the visibility
of the technological developments, declines.” It brought up a situation of how the
public debates on SB should be conducted: the scientists speculated in the media
about future developments in SB, and the media played “host to an exchange of
‘dream’ and ‘doom’ scenarios.” It suggested that the gap between available infor-
mation and hype-based media attention should be closed by using technology
assessment to facilitate public debate. For example, a technology assessment was
done on SB, pointing out new dimensions to old questions in public debates [41].
The issues identified were biosafety, misuse/bioterrorism, intellectual property,
and ethics, in comparison between GM and SB. The challenges that SB raised
were new questions and uncertainties about risks, difficulties in monitoring mis-
use and research on potentially harmful organisms, new hurdles for research and
innovations, and blurring boundary between life and machines. These issues and
challenges should be primary topics for the public debates. Meanwhile, different
technology/policy processes should be used in different stages of societal–ethi-
cal discussions. At the early stage, the public debate would be initiated through
the expectations articulated by the scientists. The introduction (mostly promises
and expectations) of the emerging technology prompted the general public to
form a perception. The real developments in the field – breakthrough or fail-
ures – would prompt the public to revise what they were first told. During the
growing stage of a technology, it was the achievement in the field that led to
public debates. While the concrete application was absent, it was not easy for the
government to address the possible issues in advance and steer developments
accordingly. The public debates on this stage should have clear goals, with objec-
tives either to steer the direction of the technological development or to gauge
public support for the development or as an input to shape/support policy.