@Jason, thanks a bunch for the response and thank you very much for the links. this is what I was looking for.
I appreciate your clarification and I should not take the last part of your quote ("... underestimate our ethics") lightly. I find myself often thinking about the technology too much and not relying on the good of people.
I am not singling out an individual here, but the discussion I wanted to start was around this idea:
I am very optimistic about the power of synbio to shape our world and as such there will the ability to shape it positively and negatively. I for one, as an instrument designer / technology developer are concerned about making equipment that will be used for...well evil. I hear people (amateurs and professionals alike) say that there is not a risk of people in the garage making the next killer virus because we don't have the skills and we don't have the equipment. Is that true? I am interested in DIY Bio because I believe in the great power that synbio will have in our world. I believe that it is a good idea to democratize equipment so that more people get involved. So more people can do amazing feats on their own. So I have a hard time reconciling the argument individuals can't do incredible feats (good and bad) on their own with my view of the future where they can. I don't want to make instruments for people so they can just rehash old experiments. I want to make instruments so that pioneers can make discoveries and shape the world. If we can shape the world then how do we do it safely and assure the world that we are doing this for good? I think those people telling the world not to worry because we don't have the technology nor the skills is doing a disservice to those who want to be taken seriously and do cutting edge work.
BTW, Carl Zimmer is pretty active in social media especially Google+. I have been following him for a while and he is responsive to readers who directly address him through G+ so I would suggest people directly address him with your concerns about the nature of the article and things being out of context.
-Chris
On Tuesday, March 6, 2012 9:49:19 PM UTC-5, Jason Bobe wrote:
On Tuesday, March 6, 2012 9:49:19 PM UTC-5, Jason Bobe wrote:
On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 2:13 PM, Chris Templeman wrote:However, in particular three quotes got really got to me (2 from prominent members of the DIYBio community) that I felt the discussion is warranted as those who are the 'public face' of DIY Bio aren't necessarily doing a great job of raising the conversation to where it should be, IMHO.1. ...D.I.Y. biologists sometimes laugh at the sinister powers people think they have. "People overestimate our technological abilities and underestimate our ethics," said Jason Bobe, a founder of DIYbio.org.
@Chris: I think its a great opportunity to raise the discussion, and I very much would be interested to hear your ideas.I didn't like the caricature of me laughing at sinister powers (flu is very serious and no laughing matter, obviously).For context, I made the statement during a conversation with Carl about how there has been a lot of anxiety about amateur or DIY biology from the beginning. In the early days of the boston group, we would hold meeting involving simple molecular biology like extracting DNA from strawberries and running a gel, then open the newspaper and read portrayals of DIY biology that made it sounds like amateurs were routinely doing work equivalent to the Manhattan Project...The funny part of the conversation I had w/ Carl, was the idea that FBI agents actually face the same dilemma as DIY biologists in how they are portrayed by media, i.e. huge technical ability (envision Men in Black underground command center) and no ethics."The ability to create nasty pathogens like your hybrid rabies virus in your bathroom is becoming easier and easier…this is much easier than trying to get enough fissile material to make a nuclear bomb…" Homeland Security Today, Dec 10, 2009Anyway, the discussion about appropriate use of biotechnology is an important one for DIY biologists to participate in, for sure.
On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Chris Templeman wrote:I really want to know where this discussion is happening. Please point me to these scientists, leaders, etc... or maybe my understanding of biology is all wrong and large scale disasters are not possible...Well, some of the richest discussions recently have been in the area of synthetic biology and those have included lots of discussions about mitigating large scale disasters too.I would start with the President's Commission recent report:
Other articles:There have been quite a bit of popular articles covering the issues too:Also, I'm really disappointed by Jason in the article making it sound like everyone subscribed on this list has agreed to work under Jason's rules/oversight. Not cool...@Bryan: What led you to say that? Can you point me to the quote in the article?Thanks,Jason
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