A guest blog by Hilary Sutcliffe, Director of MATTER, a UK think tank which explores how new technologies can work for us all.

The other day, I wrote a piece on the implications of synthetic biology where I  suggested that we “need to place discussions on a science basis, and not get over-distracted by ethical hand-wringing.”  It was a bit of a provocative statement – intentionally so – so I was pleased to see Hilary Sutcliffe pick up on it in the comments and push back against the implication that the ethics of synbio might not be as important as some think.  Given the relevance of her comments, I thought they deserved their own guest blog – so here they are – AM.

“Ethical hand-wringing”?  Hmm, I don’t think you were quite meaning this as I have interpreted it Andrew, but I have to disagree with your point in your Synthetic Biology Blog on the ethical hand-wringing, I think we should be distracting ourselves quite a lot with Ethical Hand-Wringing while the scientists are getting on with creating their new organisms, especially considering ‘what we understand is secondary to what we can do’, as you said.

I was at the Royal Society’s Synthetic Biology Stakeholder meeting which was shown by BBC Newsnight last week, (my Mum and I spotted me fleetingly in the corner!) and this and other recent synbio events gave me many a déjà vu moment – had I accidentally gone to a nano meeting?

There are many similarities between the development of genetic modification (GM) and nanotechnologies which can be learned in the development of synthetic biology.  Time is of the essence – GM and nano were pretty much already in the shops when we started to take action, but here perhaps we can get our act together a bit sooner.

Here are quick observations on my déjà vu moments and lessons from nano and GM that may apply.  This is not an exhaustive list, just my quick on-the-hoof thoughts in response to the limited information I have:

• This is just an evolution of….. what’s all the fuss about? – ‘But it’s just an extension of GM’, ‘it’s just an extension of systems biology’, ‘it’s not actually anything really different’, ‘it’s an evolution of what we have been doing for years’.  Hello?!  Whether that is true or not from a scientific point of view, much like nano when you are close to it, that is not the point.  As the The Economist points out in its editorial this week, ‘…whatever the rational pleadings of physics and chemistry, there exists a sense that biology is different, is more than just the sum of atoms moving about and reacting with one another, is somehow infused with a divine spark, a vital essence’.  That has always been the line from nano scientists too, perhaps with even more validity. But to the lay person, or the sceptic, it looks dismissive and rather suspicious.  So though it is perhaps reasonable from a scientific point of view, I would suggest that synthetic biologists kill that ‘line of defence’, it won’t work and it never worked for nano either. Instead of calming fears, in fact it often has the opposite effect of raising further concern in the non-expert.

• ‘But first we need a definition’: Aaaahhhhh, nnnnoooooo!  Guess what, there is no definition, and I had a big déjà vu moment here – the conversation was IDENTICAL to the many I have had about nano over the years!  Standards makers, regulators, synbiologists, whoever – get this sorted. This has been a very divisive issue for nano – some say deliberately engineered – so pleeeeese address this question as soon as possible.  I may be wrong, but there doesn’t seem to be a concerted international effort on this at the moment, there needs to be, now.  An idea – call up some of the nano people and find out how they did it (as slowly and tortuously as possible) and then do it differently!

• Governance – this does seem to be considered of real importance and there is work going on worldwide on this, though it appears in academia, rather than a concerted international effort – though I may be wrong. Five Academies – sister/brother orgs to the Royal Society – are meeting soon to discuss synbio, and this will be top of the list.  Obviously we need to do much better with this than we have on nano. The Venter Institute/MIT/CSIS prepared a interesting paper on Options for Governance; in the UK, Imperial/LSE/BIOS have a Center for Synthetic Biology and Innovation group which is doing some work sponsored by the Royal Society which looks interesting; and there are other experts in universities across the world doing their own work. But the BIG lesson for me from nano, which, with the potential for serious ‘bioerrors and bioterrors’, is even more important for synbio, is to get an international effort underway, ASAP, coordinated by a group such as the UN or OECD.  I have a vision of a UN/World Economic Forum/World Social Forum joint effort.  How unlikely is that, but perhaps worth a try?  Our Responsible Nano Code was the right document, but the wrong process.  Too British (despite the fact that all our businesses on the Working Group were multinational).  A very credible international process is very important here!

• ‘The current regulation is fit for purpose, we don’t need any more’.  This may actually be the case in this instance, but the time spent arguing about definitions with nano has slowed down the potential evaluation of the need for regulation and, some argue, given us some regulation which is not really fit for purpose. Again, an authoritative, multi-stakeholder process of regulatory evaluation needs to be underway now as part of the governance development process.

• Get business and science working together from the start.  In nano there were and still are parallel discussions going on with businesses and scientists in separate silos.  We really need to do things differently for synbio.  It is at the application end where the health, safety and environment impacts and social and ethical issues really hit, and business and science need both need to understand and participate in this.  If the governance area gets done by the Science Academies alone, this is unlikely to happen.  We need to find ways of making those connections with business early and making them stick.

• Ethical Hand-Wringing and public engagement. I have been encouraged by the calls on all sides for ethical debate, public engagement and what I think of as Ethical Hand-Wringing!  The ethical dilemmas in this are quite complicated, with vested interests on all sides and we need a serious commitment from governments, scientists and businesses to communicate clearly at all stages and engage all citizens in this discussion.  However, we do need more than the usual useful and interesting sets of focus groups reaching a few hundred people.  That is not really a debate on synthetic biology, it’s market research. Obviously synbioandme.org (yes I have bagged the domain) would be a start!  But I have come to the conclusion that we need to have mass communication and mass engagement if we are to allow citizens to understand and participate in this discussion.  This is tricky and we need to be much more innovative this time round.  And I don’t see much sign of that at the moment, though it is early days.  We made some inroads with nano, (fingers crossed for Nano&me being funded!) and the Dutch are doing a very interesting mass communication/engagement job on nano (check out the Nano Podium website).  Though of course as we are all broke, it won’t be happening anytime soon!

• But what do we want it for – where’s the overarching vision? A participant at the RS meeting made a very important point, which for me is the really big question.  We in the UK do these Big Important Inquiries (e.g. the recent Bioengineering report) where the government explores the potential for a technology with experts from the field in question and lo and behold, they say it is really important and should be given lots more funding! But where is the top level independent vision and strategy which explores the UK’s approach to its big issues – energy, health, poverty, the economy, for example – and looks at which technologies could be used to solve which problems?  Synbio, nano, GM, irradiation, IT, nano/bio/info/cogno may or may not be solutions to some of our most pressing problems, but unless applied research funding, economic incentives and commercial R&D is looked at in the context of other solutions, including non-technical ones, we can’t really be confident that we have got the right solutions to the right problems.   In addition, this is the very best time and place to anchor the Ethical Hand-Wringing, it would make public debate mean something, influential and galvanise everyone – from scientists to businesses, NGOs to governments – to engage better about the benefits of their work and debate real issues which will be relevant now and in the future.

Other countries do it – this must be an important priority for the new UK government. We have time with synthetic biology to get this right, we just need to get going now.

This piece also appears on the MATTER blog

Twelve months ago, geoengineering seemed little more than the fancy of science fiction writers and fringe scientists.  Now, an increasing number of people are viewing it as a viable – if extreme – option for curbing global warming.  This shift was hammered home today by Dr. John Holdren, President Obama’s science advisor, in his first interview since being confirmed to the office.  Given the enormous challenges presented by global warming, Holdren stated that geoengineering “…has got to be looked at. … We don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off the table.”

Holdren is right.  The coupling between people and the planet is now at the point where radical action is needed to avoid a shift in climate that could have a catastrophic impact on society. And while conventional technologies might suffice in the short term to bring carbon dioxide levels down and otherwise manage global warming, they will eventually  run out of steam…

Emerging technologies are going to take some time to mature to the point at which they can play a major role in combating global warming.  Joseph Romm for one is highly skeptical of the role that “breakthrough technologies” will play over the next fifty years.  But at some point they will be essential.  And as long as the innovation pipeline remains full, they will begin to provide new solutions to the challenges being faced.

This maturation of emerging technologies is already being seen with geoengineering.  The past few years have seen a number of technologies mature to the point where “tinkering” with the environment on a grand scale is looking increasingly feasible.  But it is the audacity of scientists and engineers who have suddenly realized “we can do this” that is really driving the rapidly growing field.  On the back of relatively small advances in science and technology, experts are suddenly beginning to think “this isn’t science fiction – it might actually work!”

This could be good news for future generations, but there are tremendous challenges ahead.  Clearly, there is the challenge of developing and deploying engineering projects on a massive scale.  But just as serious are the ethical issues that need to be grappled with.

Back in January, I asked the question “Does geoengineering need a dose of geoethics?“  I cautiously suggested it might be a good idea, before things move along too far.  But discussions around geoengineering are now moving so fast that I would say deep and inclusive discussions of what is right and what is appropriate are essential, and needed urgently.  The problem here is not so much that geoengineering is a bad idea, but that there is an awful lot that could go horribly wrong.

Think about it for a moment:

• The history of environmental interventions is not good (in fact it is almost uniformly bad) – what guarantees do we have that geoengineering will fare any better?
• There’s a good chance that major geoengineering projects will be the equivalent of one-shot hypothesis driven science.  In other words, while scientific progress usually relies on a process of getting things wrong and learning from the mistakes (more fancily known as “hypothesis testing”), tinkering with the planet won’t afford us too many second shots.
• The earth’s environment is non-linear and out of equilibrium – tinkering is more than likely to lead to unexpected consequences.
• Geoengineering solutions will cross national boundaries, requiring many groups to be involved in decision-making – unless individual countries decide that the dangers of not acting are so severe that accepted ethical practices don’t count.
• This leads on to the questions of “who pays,” “who benefits,” and “who pays the price?”  Failure to resolve these early on will create a huge global problems.
• Finally, the social and ethical consequences of causing harm through intervention are very different from those associated with harm that results from  inaction.  Thus geoengineering interventions that go wrong may potentially end up having a far more profound impact on society than changes in climate which the interventions were aimed at mitigating.

If geoengineering is to be taken seriously – as I think it should – these and other issues must be on the table at the very beginning of the process.  Because without the appropriate “geoethics” framework, the odds are less than favourable for us getting it right.

The worst that could possibly happen is that geoengineering is used as a last ditch, deparate attempt to correct an already out of whack environment.  Because in reality, “last ditch” usually equates to just “last.”  The way round this is to ensure that discissions are not only informed by the best science and technology, but also underpinned by broader social and ethical considertions, from the get-go.

Fortunately, there still seems to be a reasonable chance of this happening.

Given the recent surge in 2020science readers (thanks to Lon S. Cohen at Mashable), I thought it about time I did a short retrospective—a taster for the type of stuff you can expect to read here.  So here are five pieces from the past year that cover everything from nanotechnology to synthetic biology, and ethics to the trials of being on the scientific meeting circuit—all from the perspective of emerging technologies.

Enjoy!

Asbestos-like nanomaterials – should we be concerned? It seems that when the possible downsides of nanotechnology are broached, it doesn’t take long for the “A” word to surface.  But what is the truth—if any—behind comparisons between nanomaterials and asbestos?  From January 2009.

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Nanotechnology—In bed with Madonna? How do you squeeze Madonna, John Kerry, nanotechnology and Elle magazine into the same blog?  With difficulty is the correct answer I think, but somehow they all managed to appear together in this piece from April 2008.

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Synthetic biology, ethics and the hacker culture. What the heck is synthetic biology, is “biopunk” a real word, and are the 21st century equivalents of computer hackers going to reconfigure life as we know it?  I can’t promise any easy answers, but hopefully this post from June 2008 helps set the scene.

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Geoengineering: Does it need a dose of geoethics? We’ve all heard of bioethics, but if the earth can be treated like one massive complex organism, do we need the planetary equivalent of bioethics—“geoethics” perhaps?  From January 2009.

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Enough meetings already! Ever get jealous of the scientific jet-set, swanning between “prestigious” speaking engagements in exotic places?  Don’t bother—the reality is far from glamorous, as this post from May last year tries to capture.  Fortunately, there are occasional compensations, albeit in unlikely forms!

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It’s been a big week for geoengineering.  First there was the news that the world’s largest geoengineering experiment to date is about to start in the Southern Ocean.  Following close behind was a new study on how geoengineering projects could potentially impact global climate change, ranging from covering vast tracts of desert with a reflective coating to suspending giant mirrors in space.  And today sees the publication of a new paper in the journal Nature indicating that, while fertilizing oceans with iron compounds can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the sequestration rate is far lower than previously estimated.

Reading through these and other accounts, it seems clear that the deliberate modification of the Earth’s environment on a vast scale is rapidly moving from the realms of fantasy to those of possibility.  Almost overnight it seems, geoengineering has become respectable.

Climate change is largely responsible—it has hammered home the message more than anything else perhaps that humanity is now able to influence the environment on a global scale.  Just the sheer magnitude of the possible impacts of global warming has made people think seriously about countering the effects through mega-engineering.  And the simple realization that our actions can make a difference to the global environment has contributed to an intellectual leap of imagination; scientists and engineers now have the audacity to think “yes we can” when it comes to countering anthropogenic climate change with engineered interventions.

This would all be wishful thinking though if it wasn’t for rapid advances in science and technology that are underpinning the emerging “yes we can” geoengineering mentality.  Although its early days still, scientists and engineers are beginning to develop the understanding and tools to put grand schemes into place, and start playing around with Earth’s systems on a global scale.

This confluence of need, awareness and ability is bringing new vigor to geoengineering.  And it’s hard to deny that its exciting stuff. … Imagine, at the very point where humanity begins to push the boundaries of sustainable existence under existing conditions, we develop the means to conform our global environment to our needs—inverse-evolution if you like.  We discover that science and technology give us a lever large enough to shift the world, metaphorically speaking.  We find that by controlling matter at the nanoscale, we can bend it to our will at the megascale.  In short, geoengineering appears to be humanity’s right-of-passage to planetary maturity.

But back up just a minute.  It seems there is something missing here.  Sure, we have the imagination and the ability to change things on a global scale.  But these abilities seem to far outstrip our understanding of their consequences.  It almost seems that scientists are in danger of applying the hypothesis-driven science of the laboratory to the whole world, while forgetting that when the hypothesis fails, there aren’t too many options to go back and start again.  And in the clamor to find technological fixes to technology-driven problems, it sometimes appears that we’ve forgotten to ask what we should do, as well as what we can do.

If we are going to get geoengineering right—and I think in the long-run it is as important as it is inevitable—we are going to need some serious ethical input to its development and application.  And while I generally avoid artificially slicing and dicing ethics, I think it would be no bad thing to further develop the idea of geoethics, as dealing with the appropriateness of decisions that affect societies on a global scale, and possibly over many lifetimes.

Of course, the concept of geoethics isn’t new—it’s been around in one form or another for decades, usually in the context of general anthropomorphic environmental impacts.  But to my mind the potential impact of geoengineering is such that it is going to need it’s own ethical framework that enables people to agree on a wise course of action.

Certainly, geoengineering raises many tricky issues.  For instance, we are still a long way from understanding and predicting the behavior and interactions of global systems, over short, medium and long timescales.  Interfering with systems we don’t understand is likely to lead to unanticipated consequences on a global scale.   And history has repeatedly demonstrated that simplistic interventions in environmental/ecological systems lead to adverse unintended consequences. On top of this, global interventions will have global impacts, meaning that great care needs to be taken in ensuring groups affected by potential outcomes are a part of the decision-making process.

These and other questions suggest to me that it’s worth developing the area of geoethics to apply specifically to geoengineering.  I’m not the first to propose this.  Perhaps the clearest articulation of geoethics in the context of geoengineering is Jamais Cascio’s article on Worldchanging.com from 2005.  Here’s what Cascio proposed as a definition back then:

“Geoethics is the set of guidelines pertaining to human behaviors that can affect larger planetary geophysical systems, including atmospheric, oceanic, geological, and plant/animal ecosystems. These guidelines are most relevant when the behaviors can result in long-term, widespread and/or hard-to-reverse changes in planetary systems, although even transient, local and superficial alterations can be considered through the prism of geoethics. Geoethical principles do not forbid long-term, widespread and/or hard-to-reverse changes, but require a consideration of repercussions and so-called “second-order effects” (that is, the usually-unintended consequences arising from the interaction of the changed system and other connected systems).”

He follows this with a set of core principles, which I’m not sure I entirely agree with (you can read them here).  Nevertheless, it’s a start.

Admittedly, there are international guidelines and agreements in place that already cover the responsible use of geoengineering to a certain extent.  Included in these is the Convention on Biological Diversity, which cautions against ocean fertilization (for instance)—a key geoengineering approach to sequestering carbon dioxide.  But what exists currently isn’t sufficient to engage people around the world in an integrated and informed debate over how to proceed appropriately.

The start of the Southern Ocean fertilization experiment was surrounded in controversy this week, but it went ahead anyway.  Even though it involves releasing six tons of iron over 300 square kilometers of ocean, it is a triflingly small experiment compared to what could be on the books in the near future.  If the global community are to get their heads around what is right and appropriate before the next big Earth-experiment comes along, now might be a good time to start working on geoethics for geoengineering—before it’s too late.

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Note

For a good primer on various proposed geoengineering projects, and their possible impact on global warming, I would strongly recommend the just-published paper by Lenton and Vaughan; “The radiative forcing potential of different climate geoengineering options” (Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 9, 2559–2608, 2009).

Update, 1/29/09:  Alexis Madrigal’s article “Scientists Rank Global Cooling Hacks” on Wired Science provides an excellent distillation of the key information in the Lenton and Vaughan paper.  You also have to wonder – from the title of the piece – whether we need to start thinking about an emerging “geohacker” community!

Science gone right, science gone wrong, science gone social, science gone political—it’s all here in five off-beat book recommendations to kick off 2009.  Ranging from Darwin’s Origin of Species to Sir Terry Pratchett’s Nation, the one thing I think I can guarantee is that you will struggle to find an odder bunch of literary bed-fellows!  Hope you enjoy them, and have a happy new year!

A new year, a new leaf—time for five more eclectic (some might say eccentric) book recommendations to see you through the hangover and into a brighter future.

As in the previous five good books blog, I’ve eschewed the conventional to provide as unusual a potpourri of literary delights as you will find anywhere.  And as before, I’ve tried to inject a little method into the madness—spot it if you can!

I should first apologize because this was supposed to be a quick blog, rushed off before the New Years festivities began in earnest.  But it turned into a veritable “slow blog!”

So for those of you impatient to read the recommendations and move on, here they are:

• On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin
• The Two Cultures, by C. P. Snow
• Trouble with Lichen, by John Wyndham
• Cider with Rosie, by Laurie Lee
• Nation, by Sir Terry Pratchett

But please do read on, and discover the why behind the what… Here then, is my retrospective-prospective reading list for a technologically-enlightened 2009—enjoy!

In the number one slot: On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin. How could it be anything else?  Perhaps one of the most influential books to have been written over the past couple of hundred years, the repercussions of Darwin’s seminal work are still being felt today.  2009 marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species (as if you didn’t know)—and what better excuse to go back to the source and read what the great man really wrote in what he refers to as “this abstract”—and some abstract at nearly 500 pages!

Unlike much of the debate and controversy it initiated, Origin is a carefully developed and reasoned thesis based on Darwin’s observations—evidence-based science at its best.  And rather impressively, the more we learn about life on this planet, the more Darwin’s Theory of Evolution makes sense.

This is essential reading for understanding how disruptive and empowering scientific knowledge can be within society.  As society comes to rely increasingly on science and technology, there are lessons here that are well worth learning. The Origin of Species sold out on the day it was published in 1859.  It’s hard to imagine a science text selling so fast nowadays.  Which makes you think—in all the talk about how essential technology and innovation are in today’s knowledge economy, have we lost sight of the underlying science?  I wonder…

Next up, another anniversary and another highly influential book.  On May 7 1959, Charles Percy Snow—better know as C. P. Snow—delivered the annual Rede Lecture at the University of Cambridge.  His title:  The Two Cultures. The lecture—and its subsequent appearance in print—caught the spirit of the moment as two cultures; one dominated by literary intellectuals, the other by scientists; grew increasingly detached from each other and threatened to rob society of it’s ability to progress.

Snow’s thoughts have moulded thinking about science and society over the intervening 50 years.  But just as few who uphold or decry Darwinian evolution have read the original text, I suspect that not many who talk “knowledgeably” about the two cultures are that familiar with what the man actually said.

Having recently revisited the lecture, I would strongly recommend anyone interested in the interface between science and society to read it.  The lecture is clearly of its time—society has changed since 1959.  Yet scrape away at the surface, and many of the themes in the lecture are as relevant now as they were fifty years ago—negligible communication between the world of science and “traditional culture,” disrespect for science literacy (as distinct from technology familiarity), and the importance of ensuring the scientific revolution breaks down socially indefensible barriers—especially between the rich and the poor.

Today the cultures are different, and the boundaries between them blurred.  But the bottom line is that we are more dependent than ever on science in society, yet more ignorant than ever on how science works, and how to use it wisely.

If Darwin demonstrated how disruptive science can be, Snow illuminated how essential it is to harness and use its disruptive power for good within society—or suffer the consequences.

As an aside, even more significant (in my opinion) than the original Rede lecture is Snow’s 1963 assessment of the lecture’s impact.  In The Two Cultures: A Second Look, C.P. Snow finds the freedom to explain more clearly what he was really getting at in the lecture.  Here he explains the use of the “two cultures” as a vehicle to explore far more profound aspects of the science-society relationship—many just as important yet overlooked today as they were then.  Quoting from the beginning of the essay:

“In our society (that is, advanced western society) we have lost even the pretense of a common culture.  Persons educated with the greatest intensity we know can no longer communicate with each other on the plane of their intellectual concern.  This is serious for our creative, intellectual and, above all, our normal life.  It is leading us to interpret the past wrongly, to misjudge the present, and to deny our hopes of the future.  It is making it difficult or impossible for us to take good action.”

Read these essays—they are important!

Third in the list comes something a little lighter:  Trouble with Lichen, by John Wyndham. Published in 1960—right on the coat-tails of C.P. Snow’s Two Cultures—it is a fictitious tale of a scientific discovery leading to longer lives for a select few, and the social and moral challenges this raises.

Admittedly, the book is dated—it was written nearly fifty years ago after all.  But it’s still a great read.  And more importantly, it raises questions about the development and use of disruptive scientific knowledge that are highly relevant to today.

The story revolves around the discovery of a lichen-based compound that can extend a person’s lifespan by a factor of three.  But the compound cannot be synthesized, and the source is limited.  The moral questions raised are complex—longer life expectancy could lead to a more reflective society, more time to find solutions to pressing problems, greater quality of life.  But it could also lead to social injustice—widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots, and initiate social unrest.

The context may be very 1960’s, but the general issues resonate strongly with challenges facing society today as science and technology become increasingly complex.  And just as society was ill-equipped to handle disruptive science back in the 1960’s, it must be asked whether we are any better off now.

The fourth book in this list of five is something of an outsider—Cider with Rosie, by Laurie Lee. 2009 marks the fiftieth anniversary of this account of village life in rural England in the early twentieth century—anniversaries emerging as something of a theme here.  Most of the book has nothing to do with science and technology.  But it is worth reading for two reasons:

First, it is a beautifully crafted account of pre-industrial revolution English village life—I guarantee it will fill you for nostalgia, even if you have never seen an English village!

But more to the point, Lee begins to chart the enormous changes wrought on this thousand year old way of life by the industrial revolution—what Snow referred to as the beginnings of the scientific revolution we are still in.  If you get the chance, read the final chapter of the book.  While Lee is ambivalent on whether the changes he witnessed over the course of his youth were for good or ill, you cannot help but reflect on where the scientific revolution is leading us as you absorb his prose.

To whet your appetite, this is from the beginning of the final chapter:

“The last days of my childhood were also the last days of the village.  I belonged to that generation which saw, by chance, the end of a thousand years’ life.  The change came late on our Costwold valley, didn’t really show itself till the late 1920’s; I was twelve by then, but during that handful of years I witnessed the whole thing happen.

“Myself, my family, my generation, were born in a world of silence; a world of hard work and necessary patience, of backs bent to the ground, hands massaging the crops, of waiting on weather and growth; of villages like ships in the empty landscapes and the long walking distances between them; of white narrow roads, rutted by hooves and cart-wheels, innocent of oil or petrol, down which people passed rarely, and almost never for pleasure, and the horse was the fastest thing moving.  Man and horse were all the power we had—abetted by levers and pulleys.  But the horse was king, and almost everything grew around him: fodder, smithies, stables, paddocks, distances, and the rhythms of our days.  His eight miles an hour was the limit of our movements, as it had been since the days of the Romans.  That eight miles an hour was life and death, the size of our world, our prison.”

Then came cars and machines and science and technology…

Lee’s eloquent prose demonstrates just how disruptive science and technology innovation is.  The innovation can lead to both good and bad—both Lee and Snow clearly acknowledge this.  The trick it would seem—the moral imperative even—is to act to ensure the good outweighs the bad.

Last but most definitely not least comes another novel, and a real gem of a book: Nation, by Sir Terry Pratchett.

(yes, Terry has just received a well-deserved “K”.)

A word of warning up front: This is a grown-up book masquerading as a child’s story. So you might at first dismiss it.  But you do so at your peril, for Pratchett weaves an enlightening and challenging tale about science, society and religion that succeeds where many academic tomes have failed.

The story revolves around a young boy living on a Pacific island who looses his whole community to a tsunami, but ends up building a new one from the flotsam and jetsam of society that wash up on the shores.  This seemingly simple setting allows Pratchett to explore the barriers between races, cultures, philosophies, religion and science, and what can be achieved when these are broken down.

The tale is set in a parallel world, which rather delightfully enables Pratchett to bend the history of science somewhat, and the activities of some of its leading lights.  There is a beautiful homage to the likes of Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Carl Sagan, and even Patrick Moore in the closing pages!

But the power of this book—and it is powerful—comes from Pratchett’s knack of shining a searing spotlight on the human condition in the most gentle and humorous of ways.

Nation covers may themes, one of which is the foolishness of blind belief.  Of course, this includes religious beliefs in the book.  But it also extends to scientific “beliefs.”  And there is a clear message here for societies facing a science and technology-dominated future: Learn from the past, respect evidence, and communicate across barriers.

To wrap up, while this is an odd set of recommended reading by anyone’s reckoning, hopefully the thread holding the list together is clear—addressing the challenges and opportunities of science and technology within society.  Writing on the brink of 2009, science and technology innovation seem more important than ever.  Yet we seem further than ever in understanding how to ensure everyone benefits from advances that are made.

Hopefully revisiting (or visiting for the first time) these books will provide a new perspective on making wise choices over the coming year.

Happy reading, and happy 2009!

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Footnotes, added 1/1/09

On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin, is currently available in many imprints – check out Amazon.com for further details.

The Two Cultures, by C. P. Snow, is currently published by Cambridge University Press (in the Canto series).  This edition includes both the 1959 lecture, the 1963 essay, and an excellent introduction by Stefan Collini.

Trouble with Lichen, by John Wyndham was recently re-released by Penguin Books UK.  US readers will need to explore that archaic institution the Library… or pay for international shipping!

Cider with Rosie, by Laurie Lee, is currently published in the US by David R. Godine. In the UK, the publisher is Random House.

Nation, by Sir Terry Pratchett, is published by Random House in the UK, and HarpurCollins in the US.

For more on the “slow blog,” check out Todd Sieling’s Slow Blog Manifesto!

With apologies to Arundhati Roi for “borrowing” the title of her moving book, what—if anything—has nanotechnology got to do with religion?

Barnaby Feder of the New York Times takes on this issue in his latest posting to the Bits blog:

“There may not be a lot of agreement among the world’s religions on exactly what constitutes humans “playing God,” but you never hear a preacher or rabbi suggesting such behavior is wise or laudable. So you would think they might have a lot to say about nanotechnology. After all, nanotech involves rearranging not just DNA and the other building blocks of life — already a source of controversy in biotechnology — but the very atoms and molecules that make up all matter. If that is not messing around in God’s closet, what is?”

The big issue it seems is transhumanism—the use of existing and emerging technologies, including nanotechnology, to extend and change what it means to be human.  Will nanotechnology give us the ability to do what only God should?  Can we somehow thwart God’s plans, and take control of our own destiny?  Or is there nano-knowledge that should be forbidden?

Looking far into the nanotechnology future, it is not hard to imagine that nanotechnology will provide the ability to profoundly change how long we live, and the quality of that life.  Many of the breakthroughs will come through fusing nanotech know-how with other fields of advance, especially biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science.

But as Chris Toumey points out in the January edition of Nature Nanotechnology, there are more interesting—and probably more relevant—questions to discuss.  In what he calls an “unnecessarily troublesome way to view nanotechnology,” Toumey warns against overlooking short-term nanotech developments that may do great good:

“if religious writers think about nanotechnology only in terms of enhancement and immortality, they fall into a trap and become systematically hostile to a very broad technology. This is both a strategic blunder and a regrettable approach to knowledge. Nanotechnology in the present, the near-future, and indeed the far-future is much more interesting than the question of enhancement and immortality alone.”

As nanotechnologies become increasingly sophisticated, they will raise increasingly challenging questions that differentiate between what we can do, and what we should do.  So far, we have had to deal with relatively crude nanotechnologies—first generation nanotechnologies that are based on passive and simple structures.  But more complex nanotechnologies are on the way—multifunctional nanodevices; integrated nanotech-biotech system; new tools for transforming synthetic biology from a dream to reality; possibly even nanodevices that mimic biology.

Looking at where nanotechnology could be heading, I find it hard to pinpoint where the nano-religion debate will eventually find a home.  I suspect it is only when nanotechnology begins to challenge fundamental beliefs such as the existence of the human soul, or strays into what some might consider the exclusive realms of the divine, that the debate will begin to heat up.  What I find more interesting—and relevant—is the question of nanotechnology and ethics.

Many religions are somewhat ambivalent on the subject of developing “forbidden knowledge”, and throughout history religious conviction and scientific curiosity have often gone hand in hand.  But religions have plenty to say on how our hard-earned knowledge should be used.

So perhaps the religious debate should not be about whether nanotechnology challenges God’s existence and authority, but rather how our new-found nano-knowledge can be used ethically.  These decisions will naturally encompass the implications of future nanotechnologies, but they also apply to the nanotechnologies that are here already. As we develop the latest, greatest nano-product, how much are we thinking about doing good, doing no harm, ensuring autonomy and justice, and protecting privacy?

Despite a slow start, I suspect that issues surrounding nanotechnology and religion will be debated with increasing fervour over the coming years. So whether your “God of Small Things” is a deity or humanity, perhaps it is time to start thinking about how you will account for your actions—or your inactions!

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This post first appeared on the SAFENANO blog in January 2008

In July 2007, a specially convened task force of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concluded that size does in fact matter (FDA 2007).  The focus of the task force was not on the importance of “largeness”, but rather on the technology of the unimaginably small—nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology is the technology of manipulating matter at near-atomic levels; typically, but not exclusively, within the size range of 1 – 100 nanometers.  Working at this scale, it becomes possible to combine materials in ways and forms unimaginable more than a few decades ago.  Imagine the contrast between eighteenth century surgery and modern microsurgery, and you begin to get an idea of what this emerging technology offers.

According to the FDA task force, “properties of a material relevant to the safety and (as applicable) effectiveness of FDA-regulated products might change repeatedly as size enters into or varies within the nanoscale range”. But as Professor James Moor and Professor John Wecker point out in the Spring 2007 edition of Medical Ethics [PDF, 805 KB], nanotechnology not only raises safety and regulatory issues, but ethical questions as well (Moor and Wecker 2007).

At the heart of the buzz surrounding nanotechnology is its potential to extend what can be achieved with conventional technologies, and the tantalizing possibility of developing radical new technologies.  Nanotechnology is not so much a specific technology as a new way of doing things, or a new technological tool kit.  In the words of Moor and Wecker, “[n]anotechnology offers us the general capability of material malleability”.

The idea of engineering at the nanoscale conjures up images of everyday mechanical objects shrunk to the scale of molecules; nano-gears, nano-engines, even nano-machines—conventional engineering, but at a miniscule scale.  Such nano-engineering would enable us to build complex devices from handfuls of atoms, increasing the performance and utility of human-scale products.  It would also help use limited resources expediently—making products molecule by molecule, with minimal waste.  In other words, this is a vision of nanotechnology that would emulate the biological world and lead to a synthetic biology; augmenting existing natural nano-machines and “molecular assemblers” that have evolved over billions of years, with an inorganic counterpart over which we have full control.

Eric Drexler envisaged such a world in his book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (Drexler 1986).  Yet, while some of these concepts may one day become a reality, the nanotechnology of today looks very different.  Returning to the idea of engineering at the nanoscale, the chemist and Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley is credited with describing nanotechnology as “the art and science of building stuff that does stuff at the nanometer scale”.  Scientists and technologists alike are drawn to nanotechnology because of the unconventional behavior exhibited by many nanoscale materials, and their ability to “do stuff” in ways conventional materials do not.  As atoms and molecules are formed into nanoscale structures, intrinsic material properties like conductivity, transparency and chemical reactivity diverge from those observed in the constituent molecules or the bulk material.

But engineered nanomaterials can also demonstrate unconventional behavior that is associated with extrinsic attributes like size and shape. For instance, engineering a material as discrete nanometer-diameter particles might make it easier to incorporate into products, deliver to specific areas of use, or substantially increase the surface area to mass ratio.  In these cases, the intrinsic physical and chemical properties of the engineered nanomaterial are not necessarily scale-specific, but the ways in which the material is used are.

The scale-specific behavior of engineered nanomaterials takes on a special significance in interactions with biological systems and processes. Biology is inherently nanoscale, and purposely-engineered nanoscale materials allow the possibility of modulating biological processes at a fundamental level. Nano-bio interactions may result from scale-specific physical and chemical properties intrinsic to some nanoscale materials.  But they may just as likely result from nanoscale materials having access to biological processes that are inaccessible to larger scale materials.

In this way, nanotechnology provides a high-precision tool kit for exploring and influencing living systems.  The biological utility of nanotechnology is demonstrated effectively through its use in potential cancer treatments. Researchers at Rice University for example are combining the scale-dependent photonic properties of nanometer-thick gold shells, with the size-dependent biological properties of nanoscale particles, to create composite particles capable of preferentially treating tumors.  Gold-coated nanometer-diameter silica particles are introduced into the bloodstream, from where they preferentially pass through the leaky vasculature around tumors.  Once sufficient material has accumulated around the diseased cells, irradiating the particles with a laser tuned to the gold nanoshells causes localized heating, destroying the growth while leaving healthy tissue unharmed (O’Neal, Hirsch et al. 2004).

Going a step further, researchers at the University of Michigan are developing multifunctional nanoparticles for treating specific cancers.  Starting with generic nanoparticles, various functional components are added: ligands that attach to specific biological targets; contrast agents to allow particles to be tracked round the body; and sensitizing agents, enabling particles to receive and respond to external signals.  With these components, nanoparticles are being developed that selectively target and destroy cancer cells, while minimally impacting the rest of the body (Koo, Fan et al. 2007).

From relatively simple nanotechnology applications to the possibilities of synthetic life, nanotechnology provides us with tools for developing radical new processes and products.  And with these tools come the social and ethical responsibilities to use them wisely.  Concerns have already been expressed over potential new risks to humans and the environment that nanoscale-specific material behavior present. Little is known about how nanomaterials released into the environment will be transported, transformed and accumulated, or their impact on sensitive ecosystems (Oberdörster, Oberdörster et al. 2005).  Animal studies have demonstrated that nanoscale particles can enter and be transported within bodies in ways that larger particles cannot, and research suggests some nanomaterials are more potent in organs such as the lungs than their larger scale counterparts (Oberdörster, Stone et al. 2007). There are also early indications that nanoscale materials might interfere with protein conformation, and even lead to enhanced fibrillation rates in proteins associated with amyloid diseases such as Parkinsons and Alzheimers (Linse, Cabaleiro-Lago et al. 2007).

Studies remain inconclusive as to what might make nanomaterials harmful and what can be done to avoid harm.  Recommendations have been made for better-focused and funded strategic research (e.g. Maynard, Aitken et al. 2006).  But the responsible use of nanotechnologies will depend on more than good risk management.  In their article, Moor and Wecker suggest that nanotechnology has the potential to raise one of the ultimate ethical and medical issues: therapy versus enhancement.  At what point do we cross the line between restorative biocompatible materials and implanted sensors (for instance), and the enhancements such technologies will offer to healthy individuals?

Already, there is serious discussion on how nanotechnologies might extend a person’s lifespan, or even be used to enhance an individual’s intelligence (Roco and Bainbridge 2003). But the ethical issues raised by nanotechnology go further:  Who will receive the benefits of these new technologies, and who will pay the price?  Will nanotechnologies widen social, economic and cultural divides, or close them?   What are the implications of research into emulating biological systems?  And what are the consequences of not grasping the opportunities being offered by nanotechnology?

Many of these issues are not unique to nanotechnology, but as Moor and Wecker intimate, the possibilities that nanotechnologies offer to do things differently throw them into sharp relief.  Nanotechnology has the potential to improve living standards around the world, and offers solutions to some of the most pressing challenges we face: renewable energy, plentiful supplies of clean water, effective treatments for cancer, to name just three.  If our aim is to improve quality of life and do good, it would be irresponsible and even unethical to deny the world what nanotechnology has to offer.  Yet this potential for good must be weighed against the very real possibilities of causing harm, widening equity imbalances and reducing autonomy.  A future without nanotechnology would be a poorer, harsher place.  But a world where nanotechnology is not developed within a clear ethical and social framework could be immeasurably worse.  Either way, we have a challenge on our hands to move forward responsibly.  When it comes to navigating through the implications of emerging technologies on our lives, size, it would seem, really does matter.

Drexler, E. (1986). Engines of creation: The coming era of nanotechnology. New York, Anchor Books.
FDA (2007). Nanotechnology.  A report of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Nanotechnology Task Force. Washington DC, Food and Drug Administration.
Koo, Y. E. L., W. Fan, et al. (2007). “Photonic explorers based on multifunctional nanoplatforms for biosensing and photodynamic therapy.” Applied Optics 46(10): 1924-1930.
Linse, S., C. Cabaleiro-Lago, et al. (2007). “Nucleation of protein fibrillation by nanoparticles.” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. doi:10.1073/pnas.0701250104.
Maynard, A. D., R. J. Aitken, et al. (2006). “Safe handling of nanotechnology.” Nature 444(16): 267-269.
Moor, J. H. and J. Wecker (2007). “Nanotechnology and nanoethics.” Medical Ethics 14(2): 1-2.
O’Neal, D. P., L. R. Hirsch, et al. (2004). “Photo-thermal tumor ablation in mice using near infrared-absorbing nanoparticles.” Cancer Letters 209(2): 171-176.
Oberdörster, G., E. Oberdörster, et al. (2005). “Nanotoxicology: An emerging discipline evolving from studies of ultrafine particles.” Environ. Health Perspect. 13 (117): 823-840.
Oberdörster, G., V. Stone, et al. (2007). “Toxicology of nanoparticles: A historical perspective.” Nanotoxicology 1(1): 2 – 25.
Roco, M. C. and W. S. Bainbridge, Eds. (2003). Converging technologies for improving human performance.  Nanotechnol;ogy, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science. Norwell MA, USA, Kluwer Academic Publishers.
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First published in the Lahey Clinic Medical Ethics Journal, Fall 2007 [PDF, 215 KB]