Re: [DIYbio] Wikipedia clean up

Michael, please try to keep discussions separated by their main
idea/theme. You can simply copy/past the subject from the wikipedia
clean up thread, into a reply for something from another thread. This
helps us keep track of common themes in the google groups internet
cache, searching, etc. Someone reading about wikipedia clean-ups next
year might never see your replies in the 3d printing thread.

In short to respond to you, using non-biological materials in DIYbio
is essential. If it's not biological it's equipment, whether it's a
gel box or a 3D printed tumor or a 3D printed hip/fingertip/ear
structure. We are discussing microcontrollers in another thread, we've
discussed spectrometers a lot before and that's electronics and
optics. Biology is just a patterned arrangement of chemicals, they
intake and excrete chemicals. Chemicals are essential for biology and
DIYbio.

I consider transhumanism to be part of DIYbio too, discussions of
ad-hoc eugenics (prenatal testing???, partner compatibility tests)...
most anything I think about could be construed as DIYbio because I
think for myself and I'm bio.

But we need a little more distinction than that. I think DIYbio is
about ad-hoc and self-organised scientific collaboration having
something to do with learning experimenting with or hacking biology
and/or biological systems.

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 11:09 PM, Michael Turner
<michael.eugene.turner@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 3:42 AM, Patrik D'haeseleer <patrikd@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thursday, September 27, 2012 6:30:29 AM UTC-7, Michael Turner wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> > http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18677627
>>>
>>> ... which is about giving up on biology as a medium for 3D printing,
>>> because the cells die, and going with something not alive.
>>
>>
>> Might want to read that again - sounds like you completely missed the point
>> on this one.
> [snip]
>
> No, I read it through twice. 3D printing of *cells* doesn't work (yet,
> anyway). So they do 3D printing of something that isn't alive. I got
> that the first time. And it was done in a clinical/formal lab setting.
> The problem remains: does *all* 3D printing of non-biological stuff
> that COULD be used for DIYbio count as DIYbio, wherever it's done, for
> whatever purpose, by whomever, with whatever funding?
>
>> Now, you could argue whether this belongs in a DIYbio wikipedia article,
>> since the technique was developed in an academic lab.
>
> Is any DIYbio practitioner actually doing this outside an academic or
> industrial lab?
>
>> ... It's definitely within
>> the spirit of biohacking in the sense that it uses some great out-of-the-box
>> thinking (aka "hacking") and uses some very cheap and accessible tools from
>> the maker culture (reprap 3D printer). But it's still done by professional
>> scientists (if you count the grad student who probably thought of this
>> hare-brained idea as a "professional scientist"), ...
>
> The whole first project for my NPO here in Japan is based on a
> hare-brained idea from a grad student who funded his work on
> Kickstarter. So I have no particular prejudices there.
>
>> ... and likely with some sort
>> of research funding support.
>
> THAT's where one might start drawing the line, I think.
>
>> There's nothing to stop a dedicated DIY team
>> from replicating this though, and we've seriously considered doing so in the
>> BioPrinter project at BioCurious.
>
> If you can affordably use 3D printing to make some substrate (as in
> the above case) or a custom lab equipment component for your DIYbio
> projects, that contributes to a body of DIY practice, regardless of
> how many millions of public/private dollars went into the original
> invention of the technique.
>
> But remember where this started. A hip joint made out of 3D-printed
> metal? (I respond to your complaint about my "harping", below.)
> Implanted by a professional? Operating under an actionable code of
> professional ethics, on top of a body of government regulations? In an
> institutional (clinical) setting? (They aren't doing hip replacements
> at home or in educational community centers, last I checked.)
>
>> Here's another example of a borderline case of what you might or might not
>> consider DIYbio / biohacking, depending on which definition you adhere to.
>> Russel Nyches, who is doing a PhD at UC Davis, has been developing some
>> really cool tools using 3D printing and Arduinos, including a 3D printed
>> bead beating adaptor that mounts onto a Craftsman automatic hammer, custom
>> 3D printed 96-well plates, and a wireless, tweeting Arduino based pH
>> monitoring platform.
>>
>> Again, you could argue that this is all part of his "job" (i.e., being a
>> grad student and getting a PhD) and therefore not DIY. But I think you'd be
>> missing out on a lot of really interesting development within the broad
>> spectrum of DIYbio if you took that narrow an interpretation.
>
> There's already a way, one that's Wikipedia
> policy/guideline-compliant, to not "miss out" on this kind of thing. I
> would have no problem with citing, and quoting from, Nyches'
> publications in a Wikipedia article about DIYbio -- IF he gives credit
> to the DIYbio movement where it's due.
>
> In fact, I'd love it if there were a whole article section on any such
> phenomenon. If DIYbio is a kind of "spin-off" from institutional
> biotech research, it should also get credit for any "spin-in" that
> happens. But on Wikipedia, credit has to be [[WP:V]] - verifiable from
> reliable sources. Just saying, in effect, "Hey, looky! Some people in
> some labs are doing some stuff that we did first!", in a Wikipedia
> article -- you can't do it. That's [[WP:OR]] - "original research",
> which is not allowed.
>
>> PS: Stop harping on the 3D printed hip replacement. I think most people here
>> agree with you that this was not a great example of DIYbio.
>
> Perhaps most would agree, but where's the vote tally? If some of the
> more interested list members joined the Talk page discussion for
> Wikipedia's DIYbio article, we could determine whether your intuition
> about their feelings was correct, by relying on a Wikipedia editorial
> process. If there were significant differences of opinion on that Talk
> page about what's within scope, and no Talk page article consensus
> emerged, we could even subject the discussion to long-evolved
> processes for settling matters.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#Disputes
>
> Look: I know I sound like the old joke: "I'm from the government, and
> I'm here to help." But articles get good on Wikipedia, and stay good,
> only because of a degree of formal process, evolved by volunteers --
> DIYgov, if you will.
>
> I'd love for DIYbio and other related articles to reach Featured article status.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_criteria
>
> But note the stringent requirements of section 1. We can all easily
> point to articles on Wikipedia that flunk 1(a)-1(d). As for 1(e),
> well, when you have people on this mailing list asserting that DIYbio
> ethics only apply to biohackers who don't want to violate them
> (rendering the concept of "ethic" utterly vacuous) the stage is set
> for getting biohacking articles listed in another place instead:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars
>
>> .... I seem to remember a story of someone who
>> 3D printed part of his own anatomy from a cat scan, and then brought the 3D
>> print to his doctor - I think that would definitely qualify as DIY + bio,
>
> Only if you conflate medicine with biology. Medicine is not a science
> -- as several doctors I know will firmly assert. It's a profession.
> Nor is it a branch of engineering. It *uses* techniques and
> technologies inspired by a branch of biology called medical science.
> But perhaps not as much as it should.
>
>> even though in the end it still involved a real MD to interpret the results.
>
> ... an MD who probably did the diagnosis seat-of-the-pants, rather
> than rely on scientific criteria. Expert systems built in the late 80s
> outperformed most doctors when programmed for diagnosing specific
> ailments. Doctors rejected them as an infringement on their
> professional judgment.
>
> Medicine is not a science. It is not engineering either.
>
> The guy who 3D-printed his own tumor or organ from CAT-scan data
> didn't necessarily know the first thing about biology or biotech.
>
> And home CAT-scanners aren't on the horizon in any case.
>
> Regards,
> Michael Turner
> Project Persephone
> 1-25-33 Takadanobaba
> Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 169-0075
> (+81) 90-5203-8682
> turner@projectpersephone.org
> http://www.projectpersephone.org/
>
> "Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward
> together in the same direction." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
>
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--
Nathan McCorkle
Rochester Institute of Technology
College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics

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