388 18 Synthetic Biology: From Genetic Engineering 2.0 to Responsible Research and Innovation
elements of the technologies themselves even if they derive from entirely differ-
ent disciplines such as electronic engineering.
The closest link of SB and IT is established through the scientists and engi-
neers involved – many of the original protagonists in SB come from the IT sector.
As part of their professional world view, they frequently allude to IT construc-
tion elements such as integrated circuits, devices and systems, etc., when talking
about biological entities such as genes, biological pathways, cells, and organisms.
In addition, they decidedly set out to apply engineering principles in biology,
which is also the most frequently used definition for SB. Even the formation of
amateur biologists or DIYBio groups comes from a hacker tradition seen in the
IT world.
Using the IT frame as a dominant guide for assessing and debating the rami-
fications of SB, the result – to a great extent – is a predominantly positive, cool,
and gadget-like perception of SB. Yet it also calls for addressing safety and
security concerns as well as intellectual property issues as those of IT. Thus,
fostering responsibility in SB research should also be established alongside the
development of the technology, which will be discussed in the following
section.18.3.4 SB: Which Debate to Come?
Since SB is still largely unknown by large parts of the public and contemporary
debates are held mainly among experts, it is hard to tell which way the SB debate
is going to play out. Will it develop along the lines of the old GE debate, as many
environmental NGOs link it to? Or will the nanotechnology or IT comparator
frame the debates? We are not aware of any hard facts to determine the future
debate about SB. In the light of absence of such hard facts, some scholars inves-
tigated artistic expression as a sense of possibility.
A kind of sneak preview of the debate to come was presented by a study of
independent SB short films [63]. The authors analyzed (semi-) fictional short
films about SB that were shown during the Science, Art and Film Festival
BIO·FICTION (see http://www.bio-fiction.com/videos). In this festival, filmmakers
presented their visions of how SB would be taken up by society and their views
through the short films. Since artists can to some extent be regarded as cultural
psychologists, the depiction of SB in these science fiction/documentary films
might as well help us to grasp the first hints of an SB debate to come. Going
through the 52 short films from BIO·FICTION, the authors used the input to
elaborate an analysis that comes to the conclusion that “representations of SB in
the Bio:fiction films confirm with our hypothesis that the debate about SB is not
seen as a straight continuation of the debate in biotechnology/genetic engineer-
ing. Instead, alternative narrative attractors seem to be dominant. Although we
were not able to make a clear case for either technology as progress or technol-
ogy as gadget, since both aspects played out more or less equally, we could clearly
reject the technology as conflict frame [63].”
Analyzing the three main comparators of SB, it shows that SB goes beyond GE
2.0, as indicating from the scientific/technological stance and the early indica-
tions of public debates. To facilitate the development of SB and to leash the full