DIYbio and public support
fhapgood
enterprises of a
kind. I suspect the more successful our kind of DIYbio is in
packaging itself as one of
those, the more tractable the public issues will be.
Bottom line: don't work with anything you wouldn't eat. And then eat
it.
Fred
Bryan Bishop
> Nobody has any trouble with gardening, farming, or cooking, all DIYbio
> enterprises of a kind. I suspect the more successful our kind of DIYbio
> is in packaging itself as one of those, the more tractable the public issues
> will be.
Gardening, farming, cooking. Another big one to add is **people** --
giant walking, talking, feely, biological machines. Lots of people
like people :-) maybe that's the best one of all?
Specifically, the concept that people are biological machines can be
used to package the concepts of diybio. For instance, learning about
other biological organisms as a way to learn about ourselves, or being
able to do biology lab work for ourselves, and there are many other
ways to use this.
Dan
>
> Nobody has any trouble with gardening, farming, or cooking, all DIYbio
> enterprises of a
> kind. I suspect the more successful our kind of DIYbio is in
> packaging itself as one of
> those, the more tractable the public issues will be.
In the light of these public perception discussions people might be interested in:
which I hadn't come across until today
"The Synthetic Biology Project is being launched to identify gaps in our knowledge of the potential risks of the field, explore public perceptions towards it, and examine governance options that will both ensure public safety and facilitate innovation"
> Bottom line: don't work with anything you wouldn't eat. And then eat
> it.
LOL :) Kind of the line I take with people who eat meat, but don't like thinking about where it comes from. If you're not prepared to kill it yourself, don't eat it.
Dan
--
|| Dan || dan[at]dreadportal.com || http://dreadportal.com/ ||
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
(Philip K. Dick - How to Build a Universe)
Russell .
What do you actually think the website, or the people behind the website (the three of them) can or want to accomplish? In a very realistic sense.
Russell
Bryan Bishop
> What do you actually think the website, or the people behind the website
> (the three of them) can or want to accomplish? In a very realistic sense.
I thought it was a matter of what the community wants to accomplish?
But anyway, listening to Christopher Kelty would be a a good first
step:
http://groups.google.com/group/diybio/browse_thread/thread/596dab589267bedf/21104fd01c8914a6#21104fd01c8914a6
http://groups.google.com/group/diybio/msg/c062dd6023c8b3d8
If proactivism is where it's at, infrastructure projects are critical.
tyso...@gmail.com
DIYbio needs several things to garner public support, Show that it is
safe, needs to be marketable, and needs to have government support.
The last is possibly the most important. There would be no easier way
for all of this to vanish if the government put stringent controls on
this sort of thing. As for safe that is in everyones hands. Like has
been said before if you wouldn't eat it.... As for marketable, we
need people like Petersen in the news, not only that, but we need
projects which are seen as helping people. If the public is on our
side, so follows the government. People fear what they don't
understand and this is a new and nearly mystical field for the average
citizen. A whole bunch of people doing potentially dangerous stuff
(from what they hear, regardless of the truth) that you don't
understand is a sure route to getting shut down. What this needs is a
PR machine not just a PCR machine.
Daniel C.
> DIYbio needs several things to garner public support, Show that it is
> safe, needs to be marketable, and needs to have government support.
I agree, though you may want to pick a word other than "support".
When I first read that I thought you meant financing.
Eric Zhang
Eric Zhang
tyso...@gmail.com
not think it is in the best interest for this enterprise to become a
CC. It becomes much easier to target under such guidelines than as a
simple assembly of like minded individuals speaking freely, think
compartmentalized liability.
Joseph Jackson
combination-- a super cheap 10$ thermocycler perfect for hobbyists and
schools. I've talked to the National Association of Biology Teachers
and they were receptive to the idea of DIY biology. We hope to have
our machine ready for demo at the Nov 09 national meeting. A good
friend of mine who directs the Genetics Policy Institute has partnered
with NABT this year to produce a stem cell curriculum. The same could
be done for DIY Bio/Syn bio as part of a "biotech" literacy
campaign.
I've talked briefly to Jason Kelley about this--packaging our pcr
machine with introductory kits for schools.
See also the NY times feature on the girls doing DNA barcoding.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/science/22fish.html
I talked to professor Hanner whose lab handled the samples from the
girls. The media is a bit misleading because one of the girl's
fathers is a biologist and knew Hanner. But having cheap tools, such
as our thermocycler, can increase participation in these kinds of
citizen science projects.