Results and discussion

--under construction--
This section outlines and discusses the results of the survey for each question individually as well as per subject. Furthermore, a summary of the results of the correlation calculations between questions can be found here. An abstract of the results and discussion as well as conclusions and recommendations can be found in the conclusions section.

Personal

The reason to ask the following rather personal questions is to get an indication of the sample's background. Although we already know they are practically all involved in the 2009 iGEM competition, questions about gender and home country can display the male/female ratio and denotes different cultural backgrounds.

Graph i.

i. How are you involved in iGEM?
A. Participant
B. Supervisor
C. Advisor
D. Other:

Of the 242 survey contributors, there are 60 people with an advisor/supervisor role, which equals 25%. It might be interesting to compare their answers to those of the 168 participants, to see whether a different relation (student vs. instructors) to iGEM and synthetic biology in general has influence on their opinions and perceptions. This will be discussed HERE.

Graph ii.

ii. What gender are you?
A. Male
B. Female

Although engineering in general mainly attracts male students, the iGEM competition shows a mixture of gender where 36% of our survey-participants is female. One of the questions that might be interesting: could there be a differences between male and female answers on ethical issues in synthetic biology? We come back to that HERE.

Graph iii.

iii. Which country are you from?
Open question

The colorful pie-graph already indicates the high diversity of backgrounds. There are 22 different nationalities involved in this study, which supports the independence of the overall study results towards cultural differences. Whether people with different nationalities have different perceptions/opinions on the ethical issues will not be discussed here, due to an uneven distribution of geographical backgrounds. The biggest contributors to the survey are expectedly the USA and Canada.

Reductionism and evolution

The following questions are an introduction to the main ethical issue: whether the reductionist approach in biology has any effect on our current perception of life and if so, how. The questions meddle with general traditional and established viewpoints. The general content of these multiple-choice question comes back in the last open question, where the survey-participants could choose to write their opinion on what is life and whether the reductionist approach would lead to fully understanding life.

Graph 1.

1. Reductionism (also known as the top-down approach) aims to understand the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interaction of their parts. The reductionist approach has been applied to biology in order to understand the complexity of living things by studying its components (such as DNA, proteins, etc). Do you think that the reductionist approach will lead to understand life?

1. No, living systems are too complex to fully understand, they have properties that cannot be explained by studying their individual parts
2. No, biological phenomena are fundamentally special in a way that prevents them from being completely understood
3. Yes, fundamental research in biology will eventually result in the ability to fully understand life
4. Yes, we already understand living systems completely, due to the reductionist approach
5. Other:...

This question is hard to answer because it depends on future expectations. What can be seen from the results is that the synthetic biology community has very different believes. The group is practically split in two equal camps where 48% thinks that the reductionist approach will lead to understanding life, while 39% votes for the complete opposite. The majority of the latter group thinks that mankind will never be able to fully understand the mechanisms of life, because they have properties that cannot be explained by reductionism. Although not explicitly stated in answer A, this would probably indicate that they believe that biological systems have emerging properties that can not be explained using the reductionist approach. The other-answers gave a few different insights, which will briefly be summarized here.
There was a very small group that did not agree on the explanation of reductionism as given in the question. The question states that reductionism reduces systems to the interaction of their parts and that it is a method to study systems by studying their components, while they believe that reductionism only applies to studying the individual components. Reductionism covers quite a broad field, it is explained differently and many definitions can be found. But the main theme that we tried to address is the scientific approach of working on complex systems top-down to understand them by studying the subsystems (both components and interactions).
The most open-answers indicated that although the reductionist approach might be limiting, it will bring us far towards discovering the secrets of life. Some blended this answer with an additional statement saying that when the top-down approach is combined together with for example systems biology and holistic approaches, we will/might discover the principles of life eventually.
Although not everyone agrees on the relevance of this question because we cannot know what the future will bring us, we intended to make people aware of this issue and able ourselves to think about this subject and its possible consequences to prepare ourselves independent of the eventual outcome. The big differences within our sample group shows the importance of thinking about these subjects.

Graph 2.

2. Various people think that reductionism challenges the tradition which holds that life is valuable because it is more than "merely physical". The special status of living things and the value we ascribe to life may be changed by reductionism. If we assume that a thorough understanding of the mechanisms of life necessarily decreases the value life, should we then pull back from the pursuit of understanding life?

1. Yes, because we can not foresee the implications that this knowledge might have
2. No, understanding life is more important than the possibility that reductionism devaluates life
3. No, because I do not believe that biology can change the meaning/value of life, the dimensions of the human experience cannot be explained exclusively by physics
4. Other:

Graph 3.

3. In biology, evolution is the change in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. Should mankind modify organisms (direct its evolution) by the use of genetic engineering?

1. Yes, because it has known benefits
2. Yes, because we have the moral obligation to apply genetic engineering if it is possibly beneficial
3. No, because we cannot foresee the consequences and implications of our actions when we interfere with evolution
4. No, because evolution is a natural process that research should not interfere with
5. Other:...

Venter et al.

One of the biggest contributors to synthetic biology research and possibly the most controversial researcher in (synthetic) biology is Craig J. Venter. His project on creating a minimal genome is groundbreaking and raises a lot of questions, primarily by media machinery. How does the synthetic-biology-research community think about his research and bold statements?

Graph 4.

4. Craig Venter is one of the lead researchers in the minimal genome project. He intends to synthesize a bacterial genome from scratch, and then insert it into a cell (a Mycoplasma bacterium, from which the original genome is removed) to see if it can have the normal functions of the organism (Hutchison, 2003). Do you think Venter's approach is typically new?

1. Yes, his approach is novel; he uses new techniques
2. No, he just uses genetic engineering principles
3. Other:

Graph 5.

5. (See previous question) Venter says he will be able to create a life form artificially. What is your perception on his statement?

1. Venter is playing God by trying to create a new life form artificially
2. Venter is only applying genetic engineering to artificially change this bacterium
3. Other:

Graph 6.

6. (See previous question) What do you think the perception of the public would be?

1. Venter operates controversially by trying to create a new life form artificially
2. It is just research, he is not able to really create life. He is only able to put biological components together
3. Other:

Risks

As outlined in the background information section, one of the main issues in synthetic biology concerns bio-safety and security. To obtain information on how researchers in the field think about this subject, we questioned the relevance of these concerns. Both the dangers of errors and terrors are addressed, as well as the attitude towards risk-taking in this emerging field of science.

Graph 7.

7. Synthetic biology may enable us to create biological systems artificially. There is a possibility that someone will create something dangerous. Are you afraid that synthetic biology might result in the production of a biological system containing some sort of error, which makes it hazardous?

1. Yes, I acknowledge this possibility, but think it is not significant because there is sufficient regulation
2. Yes, I recognize that this is a possible outcome and think new regulations/policies should be enforced, to minimize this possibility
3. No, I think that researchers approach synthetic biology careful enough already
4. No, I do not fear this at all
5. Other:

Graph 8.

8. Are you afraid that synthetic biology might result in the production of a biological system that can be used for terrorist purposes?

1. Yes, I acknowledge this possibility, but think it is not significant because there is sufficient regulation
2. Yes, I recognize that this is a possible outcome and think new regulations/policies should be enforced, to minimize this possibility
3. Yes, I acknowledge this possibility, but there is nothing we can do about it
4. No, I think that researchers approach synhethic biology careful enough already and are sufficiently discrete
5. No, I do not fear this at all
6. Other:

Graph 9.

9. The naturalness of a certain system is generally explained as "its quality of being natural or being based on natural principles". How do you perceive the risk of human interference with nature (for example, trough new technology)?

1. If you cannot prove that these new technologies are safe assume they are dangerous
2. If you cannot prove that these new technologies are dangerous assume they are safe
3. If this technology really tends to get out of hand I will react, otherwise there is nothing to do about it
4. I minimize the risk before doing the actual research
5. Other:

Graph 10.

10. (see previous question) How do you think the public percieves this?

1. If you cannot prove that these new technologies are safe assume they are dangerous
2. If you cannot prove that these new technologies are dangerous assume they are safe
3. If this technology really tends to get out of hand researchers should react, otherwise there is nothing to do about it
4. Researchers should minimize the risk before doing the actual research
5. Other:

Life, beliefs and opinions

The following are a set of questions that should indicate how the synthetic biology community thinks about life, what values they give to it, what it means to them, and to what extend it can be explained (reduced) in terms of physics. To a certain extend, these questions should make the reader aware that they are working with living systems with a certain worth but and make them think about how research may effect the value or perception of life. The ultimate way of applying the reductionist approach could well explain life, consequently have certain implications. Whether this point will ever be reached is doubtful. What is the scientific opinion?

Graph 11.

11. "Assume that research will show that life is only based on the interactions of atoms (biochemical reactions) with specific properties. Consequently, research shows that life is fully reducible and independent of special, holy, sacred or magical properties." Would you believe this information?

1. Yes, and I would not have a problem with it
2. Yes, but I would like to believe there is more to life
3. No, I would not believe it, because there is more to life
4. No, because it would devaluate my perception of life
5. Other:

Graph 12-1.

12. I accept that God's hand is involved in life
Please indicate on a scale of 1-10 how much you agree on this.

Graph 13-1.

13. I believe that life is holy/sacred
Please indicate on a scale of 1-10 how much you agree on this.

Graph 14-1.

14. I think that the properties of biological systems can be explained by their reducible subsystems
Please indicate on a scale of 1-10 how much you agree on this.

Graph 15-1.

15. I think that a complex living system is more than the sum of its biological components
Please indicate on a scale of 1-10 how much you agree on this.

Graph 16-1.

16. Life is physical and can be explained materialistically
Please indicate on a scale of 1-10 how much you agree on this.

Researchers and the public

General interest in the reasons for people to work in synthetic biology lead to the first of the following question. Insight in the goals of synthetic biology can help in defining the fields were possibly more regulation is needed. One of the problems in science in general is the way to communicate research to the public. It gets even more difficult when controversial subjects raise ethical issues that might be hard to understand without any scientific background knowledge. Should the scientific community inform the public about every detail, or is the material to complex to communicate? Should ethical questions be dealt with together, or should the scientific community self-regulate and decide on dilemmas without informing the public?

Graph 17.

17. What is your goal in synthetic biology?

1. I aim to explain biology in terms of physics and chemistry
2. My priority is gaining and sharing knowledge on novel fundamental biological processes in life
3. I would like to see that my research on non-natural occurring biological systems is being used for social objectives, such as curing cancer or making bio-fuels
4. With synthetic biology I would like to create a bridge between biology and computer science, to use biological systems for machine-like purposes
5. I hope that my research in synthetic biology will be used in the industry, consequently giving me finanicial benefits
6. Other:

Graph 18-1.

18. Advances in synthetic biology should be communicated to all of society.
Please indicate on a scale of 1-10 how much you agree on this, with 10 being full agreement.

Graph 19-1.

19. The scientific community and the public have to work together in addressing key ethical and religious concerns.
Please indicate on a scale of 1-10 how much you agree on this, with 10 being full agreement.

Life

When discussing ethical questions concerning the implications of the approaches in synthetic biology, the ultimate questions that always come up are: what is life? and what is natural?. Although these questions are possibly never fully answerable, there are a lot of different definitions going around and people have different opinions on it. The questions before are partially a means to help answer these questions. Can the reductionist approach ever lead to an explanation of life? Even though we tried to focus on a narrow subject in all the ethical issues that are raised by synthetic biology, the questions that involve life are still too massive to handle. Famous philosophers have thought about comparable dilemmas centuries ago. The prospects of synthetic biology re-initiates the discussion, a result of researchers working on the brink of understanding and creating life. How do the people involved in the iGEM competition think about life?

Graph 20.

20. What constitues life? Is the reductionist approach limiting in explaining life?
Open question (optional)