The Construction of Imaginaries of the Public as a Threat to Synthetic Biology
The Construction of Imaginaries of the Public as a Threat to Synthetic Biology
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DOI：
10.1080/09505431.2014.986320
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发表时间：
2015-01-02
影响因子：
2.6
通讯作者：
Marris, Claire
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Marris, Claire
科学机构和注重创新的政府机构认为，公众对合成生物学的态度是该领域的障碍。这种观点是基于这样一种看法，即公众对合成生物学感到害怕(或可能会变得害怕)，“公众恐慌”将阻碍该领域的发展。公众对合成生物学的恐惧一直是推动公众参与和其他活动背后的推动力，我将其描述为“共生恐惧症”，以解决“伦理、法律和社会问题”(ELSI)。这些活动在两个方面都存在问题。首先，它们是基于对公众对科学的反应的不可信的“赤字模式”理解，在这种理解中，公众对科学的负面态度被认为是缺乏科学知识的结果。其次，他们认为科学机构提出的社会技术期望是理所当然的。对这一领域的这些承诺，以及它们所包含的默许的规范性承诺，还没有开放给公众评价。在这些方面，合成生物学例证了威尔士和韦恩(2013)所描述的许多现象。本文分析了科学机构为唤起公众对合成生物学的想象而进行的工作中的本体论赌注。随着合成生物学在公众的威胁下成为一个充满希望的领域，科学、公众以及它们之间的关系是如何定义的？
Scientific institutions and innovation-focused government bodies have identified public attitudes to synthetic biology as an obstruction to the field. This view is based on a perception that the public is (or will likely become) fearful of synthetic biology and that a ‘public scare’would impede development of the field. Fear of the public’s fear of synthetic biology, which I characterise as ‘synbiophobia-phobia’, has been the driving force behind the promotion of public engagement and other activities to address ‘ethical, legal and social issues’(ELSI). These activities have been problematic in two ways. Firstly, they are based on the discredited ‘deficit-model’understanding of public responses to science, in which negative public attitudes towards science are thought to result from a lack of scientific knowledge. Secondly, they have taken for granted sociotechnical expectations put forward by scientific institutions. These promises of the field, and the tacit normative commitments embedded within them, have not been opened up to public appraisal. In these ways, synthetic biology exemplifies many phenomena described by Welsh and Wynne (2013). This article analyses the ontological stakes in the work conducted by scientific institutions to conjure up imaginaries of publics with respect to synthetic biology. As synthetic biology emerges as a field of hope under threat from publics, how have science, publics and the relations between them become defined?