Cultural Cognition of Synthetic Biology Risks

合成生物学风险的文化认知

• 批准号: 0922714
• 负责人: Dan Kahan
• 金额: $ 39.9万
• 依托单位: Yale University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-08-15 至 2013-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0922714&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Cultural; Cognition; Synthetic; Biology; Risks

Synthetic biology is an emerging technology that permits scientists to design living organisms unlike any found in nature. Such organisms, it is hoped, might be put to myriad beneficial uses, including the treatment of disease, the elimination of environmental pollutants, and the production of new sources of energy. At the same time, scientists recognize that engineered life forms could pose risks to the environment and to human health. Exactly what those hazards are, and how they might be contained, cannot be fully determined independently of the very research necessary to perfect development of synthetic biology. Will the public resist the advent of a science the risks and benefits of which remain attended by this degree of uncertainty? And how might that reaction be influenced by the public?s moral and emotional responses to the prospect of substituting human agency for the subtle processes of nature in determining what shapes life takes on our planet? What should researchers and risk communicators do to assure that such reactions do not prevent the best available science from informing public deliberations?This project will use the cultural cognition of risk to help answer these questions. The ?cultural cognition of risk? refers to the tendency of individuals to fit their factual beliefs about putatively dangerous activities to their cultural evaluations of those activities. Past research has established the role of cultural cognition in public conflicts over diverse environmental risks. Some of these disputes relate to well established technologies, such as nuclear power; others relate to relatively novel ones, such as nanotechnology. The current project will use cultural cognition to identify potential sources of conflict over synthetic biology risks, and techniques for mitigating them. In addition, the project will make synthetic biology the focus of how another important mechanism of risk perception?numeracy, or the facility of individuals with quantitative information?interacts with cultural cognition. In this way, the project will extend scientific knowledge of the dynamics of risk perception generally at the same time that it promotes society?s interest in anticipating public reactions to one, singularly important new technology.

合成生物学是一种新兴技术，它允许科学家设计不同于自然界中任何生物的生物体。人们希望，这些生物体可以被用于无数有益的用途，包括治疗疾病、消除环境污染物和生产新的能源。与此同时，科学家们认识到，工程生命形式可能对环境和人类健康构成风险。这些危害究竟是什么，以及如何控制它们，不能完全独立于完善合成生物学发展所必需的研究。公众会抵制一门科学的到来吗？它的风险和收益仍然受到这种程度的不确定性的影响。公众的这种反应又会受到怎样的影响呢？在决定我们星球上生命形态的过程中，以人类的力量取代自然的微妙过程的前景，人类在道德和情感上的反应是什么？研究人员和风险传播者应该做些什么来确保这种反应不会阻止最好的科学为公众的审议提供信息？这个项目将使用风险的文化认知来帮助回答这些问题。的？风险的文化认知？是指个人倾向于将他们对有害活动的事实信念与他们对这些活动的文化评价相吻合。过去的研究已经确立了文化认知在各种环境风险的公共冲突中的作用。其中一些争端涉及成熟的技术，如核能;另一些争端涉及相对较新的技术，如纳米技术。目前的项目将利用文化认知来确定合成生物学风险冲突的潜在来源，以及减轻这些风险的技术。此外，该项目将如何使合成生物学的另一个重要机制的风险感知的重点？计算能力，还是个人掌握定量信息的能力？与文化认知相互作用。通过这种方式，该项目将扩大科学知识的动态风险感知一般在同一时间，它促进社会？我们有兴趣预测公众对一项特别重要的新技术的反应。