378 18 Synthetic Biology: From Genetic Engineering 2.0 to Responsible Research and Innovation
new technology at least partially based on information they learned. With the
limited information (just by short information without further supporting
information), the public tended to be more skeptical toward the new comer.
This finding somehow runs against the belief often voiced by SB scientists that
the more the public knows about the technology, the more they like it. The
surveys show that this is not automatically the case.
Oversight of the technology: By comparing the survey result of year 2013 with year
2010, it showed that there is a shift of public opinion on how SB should be
regulated. More people considered voluntary research guideline as adequate:
43% of them in year 2013 rising from the 36% in year 2010. A detailed decision
on the opinions in year 2013 showed that those who favored government
regulation had more confidence in federal government to maximize benefits/
minimize risks (59%), while those who favored voluntary guideline showed
only 33% confidence on government regulation. Although lack of consensus
on how SB should be regulated, the majority of people (two thirds) showed
support for SB research instead of placing a ban due to lack of information on
risks (one third). This attitude remained the same in the latest two surveys
(years 2010 and 2013). More support for the technology to go ahead (88%)
came from people who held the opinion that benefits outweighed risks, while
those who believed risks outweighing benefits were keen to ban the research
(61%). Regarding the most problematic issues, the ranking was as follows:
potential to create biological weapons (28%), moral concern to create artificial
life (27%), harm to human health (20%), and damage to the environment (12%).
An interesting finding from the latest survey was that there was very low
awareness of the do-it-yourself biology (DIYBio) movement among the public
(only 7%), although this is a grassroots movement supposed to encourage
public engagement in research through so-called citizen scientists.
Other studies: Besides the surveys mentioned earlier, the public attitudes toward
SB from these surveys were further analyzed [23–25]. Pauwels summarized
the two clear findings from the SB surveys [24]. The first is that most people
know little or nothing about SB. Second, notwithstanding this lack of knowl-
edge, respondents are likely to venture some remark about what they think SB
is and the trade-off between potential benefits and potential risks. This is
common for the public perception on other technologies as well due to science
literacy. Analogous to cloning, GE and stem cell research were recurrent in the
dissemination of SB in the science publications and the public outreach mate-
rials. More frames and comparators of SB will be reviewed in Section 18.3. The
potential applications seem to be another decisive factor in shifting public
perception of SB. Finally, the acceptance of the risk–benefit trade-off of SB
seems to depend on an oversight structure that would manage the unknowns,
the human and environmental concerns, and their long-term effects. It showed
that additional investigations were needed to identify other factors that would
shape public perceptions about SB, its potential benefits, and its potential
risks. Comparison between the US survey and the UK public dialogue was
conducted and that the awareness of SB grew significantly in the United States
while the UK dialogue indicated a “conditional support” for SB [26]. The devel-
opment of public perception on SB was also studied by comparing the trends