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Team:Calgary/Human Practices/Ethics
From 2009.igem.org
Second Life ™ Ethics Conference
As a future suggested direction for our future University of Calgary iGEM Team, we put forward the idea of holding an ethics conference in the online virtual world of Second Life ™. The purpose of this conference would be to foster debate amongst people, who have some background in the field of synthetic biology and iGEM, on ethical issues that the field of synthetic biology is facing. This novel approach to the ethical aspect of our future projects would be different from the surveys and conferences that are usually organized for the ethics portion.
Some people might argue that why choose a Second Life ™ conference over a survey. In response, we would say that in the past, there were many iGEM teams that conducted surveys or self administered questionnaires and the results from these experiments were similar in some way or the other. There was less variation in the questions that were asked and the responses that were received. And there are always limitations such as the complexity of the questions that are being asked because of the lack of knowledge about synthetic biology. Therefore, we chose to conduct a Second Life ™ conference over a survey because it would be a novel approach to the project and it would be able to avoid some limitations that surveys have. Some people might say that why not hold a live conference? Why choose Second Life ™? In response, we would say that since we are a student run team, we would not have the budget to hold a live conference. The Second Life ™ conference would avoid most of the cost that are required to organize live conferences. Some guest speakers might have busy schedules and they might not be able to attend a live conference. A Second Life ™ conference would also avoid this problem to as the Second Life ™ software is easily accessible over the internet and it does not take much time to become familiar with the online virtual world of Second Life ™.
Some of the issues that will be up for discussion include:
• Why is it important to discuss the ethical aspect of synthetic biology?
• iGEM is a synthetic biology competition where UNDERGRADUATE TEAMS from all over the world come and compete for the best syn-bio project. Do you think that these UNDERGRADUATE TEAMS need to discuss the ethical aspect of their project prior to their project?
• What are some of the ethical issues that the field of synthetic biology has to face? Is there some kind of balance between costs and benefits of the potential applications?
• Some people believe that publications in the field of synthetic biology should be self regulated while others believe that the publications should be regulated by the government. What is your opinion?
• E3LS is a way to categorize the ethical issues surrounding the synthetic biology. Is either of the categories more important than the rest or all of the categories are equal in significance?
We will invite guest speakers, who have either expertise in the field of synthetic biology or are somehow involved in the iGEM competition, and discuss with them some of the ethical issues mentioned above in the list. The time length of the conference would be at the discretion of the team and would be held at Synthetic Biology Interactive, which is an island in Second Life ™.
