Delgado Ana, Porcar Manuel
Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, University of Bergen, PO Box 7800, 5020 Bergen, Norway.
Cavanilles Institute, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain ; Fundació General de la Universitat de València, Valencia, Spain.
Syst Synth Biol. 2013 Jun;7(1-2):41-50. doi: 10.1007/s11693-013-9106-6. Epub 2013 Apr 9.
Synthetic biology is often presented as a promissory field that ambitions to produce novelty by design. The ultimate promise is the production of living systems that will perform new and desired functions in predictable ways. Nevertheless, realizing promises of novelty has not proven to be a straightforward endeavour. This paper provides an overview of, and explores the existing debates on, the possibility of designing living systems de novo as they appear in interdisciplinary talks between engineering and biological views within the field of synthetic biology. To broaden such interdisciplinary debates, we include the views from the social sciences and the humanities and we point to some fundamental sources of disagreement within the field. Different views co-exist, sometimes as controversial tensions, but sometimes also pointing to integration in the form of intermediate positions. As the field is emerging, multiple choices are possible. They will inform alternative trajectories in synthetic biology and will certainly shape its future. What direction is best is to be decided in reflexive and socially robust ways.
合成生物学常常被视为一个充满前景的领域，其志在通过设计创造新奇事物。最终的愿景是创造出能够以可预测的方式执行新的、理想功能的生命系统。然而，事实证明，实现新奇的愿景并非易事。本文概述并探讨了在合成生物学领域工程学与生物学观点的跨学科讨论中出现的关于从头设计生命系统可能性的现有争论。为了拓宽此类跨学科争论，我们纳入了社会科学和人文学科的观点，并指出了该领域内一些根本的分歧来源。不同观点并存，有时表现为有争议的紧张关系，但有时也指向以中间立场形式存在的整合。随着该领域的兴起，多种选择成为可能。它们将为合成生物学的不同发展轨迹提供信息，并必将塑造其未来。最佳方向应以反思性和社会稳健的方式来决定。
