DIYBIO in the news..."Amateurs Are New Fear in Creating Mutant Virus"

[Chris Templeman]

Interesting article from the standpoint of the completely disparate points of view. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/health/amateur-biologists-are-new-fear-in-making-a-mutant-flu-virus.html  

The range from whether it is possible to create H1N1 is pretty broad...

compare for instance:

“If you are a farmer somewhere in China, you could do it,” said Dr. Mueller, the virologist at Stony Brook. 

versus

The synthesis companies are on the lookout for matches between requested DNA and the genomes of dangerous pathogens. But some experts say such safeguards are hardly airtight. “You could imagine a determined actor could cleverly disguise orders,” Dr. Casadevall said. “I have a lot of respect for human ingenuity.” 

Do you need gene synthesis to make the next "killer flu" or just a few barnyard animals?

-Chris

[Richard Proctor]

#fearmongering

On Mar 5, 11:00 pm, Chris Templeman <christemple...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Interesting article from the standpoint of the completely disparate points
> of view.
>

> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/health/amateur-biologists-are-new-f...

[Chris Templeman]

@Richard I do agree that the article lends itself to fearmongering....

A broader discussion that I think the article should have focused on is not whether DIY Biologists could make a deadly flu today or in the near future but whether Biologists of all types (amateur to professional) in general are coming to terms and taking a full account of the potential power they will have in shaping this world.  It is somewhat of a subtle point I want to get across and forgive for choosing examples that are rife with baggage, but as someone with a physics background and not a bio background I can think of two examples to make my point.   TNT and the Atomic Bomb.  In both cases scientists came up with discoveries that have both well known positive and negative effects.  Many lives were saved.  Many lives were lost.  What interests me is how the pioneers of these technologies dealt with their discoveries.  Nobel, who invented TNT realizes that negative power he brought on this earth and starts the Nobel Prize to acknowledge and reward positive scientific progress.  Einstein, a key person for atomic energy leading to the bomb, at first urges the US to make the bomb and once it is unleashed on the world spends the rest of his life actively working to free the world from Nukes.  The technology was produced and after great negative incidents each man spent time and effort to attempt to rid the world of the negative aspects.

We have not had the equivalent of TNT nor the Atomic Bomb with respect to synbio or other emerging biotech...should we start a discussion now or wait till it happens?

What I am getting at and what I want to know is:

1.  Are biologists aware of the great power they / may have in the near future?  Are the pioneers of the new field of synbio really taking stock of what great power they hold?  

2.  If biologists are aware of the potential power who is making a point of saying "yes I know we will have great power.  Some my use this power negatively, but here is why progress needs to continue and most importantly here is how we can overcome the negative aspects?

I really want to know where this discussion is happening.  Please point me to these scientists, leaders, etc... or maybe my understanding of biology is all wrong and large scale disasters are not possible...

I think the article in the NYTimes is a continued back of forth of scientists debating the possibility of a particular person with a particular skill set doing something wrong, but what we really we should be seeing is a discussion and acknowledgement that 1) in the future biologists will wield an incredible amount of power (good and bad) and 2) how are these pioneers responding to that responsibility in the new world they are shaping? 

-Chris

[Bryan Bishop]

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Chris Templeman <christe...@gmail.com> wrote:

I really want to know where this discussion is happening.  Please point me to these scientists, leaders, etc... or maybe my understanding of biology is all wrong and large scale disasters are not possible...

In the archives. It's painful to keep rehashing these things. Also, I'm really disappointed by Jason in the article making it sound like everyone subscribed on this list has agreed to work under Jason's rules/oversight. Not cool... but the journalist probably just caught him off guard or something.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

[Chris Templeman]

@Bryan, sorry it's painful.  I guess I am a noob around these parts and I will check out the archives. 

However, in particular three quotes got really got to me (2 from prominent members of the DIYBio community) that I felt the discussion is warranted as those who are the 'public face' of DIY Bio aren't necessarily doing a great job of raising the conversation to where it should be, IMHO.  

1.  ...D.I.Y. biologists sometimes laugh at the sinister powers people think they have. “People overestimate our technological abilities and underestimate our ethics,” said Jason Bobe, a founder of DIYbio.org.

2.  ...Todd Kuiken, a senior research associate at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington who specializes in the movement, points out that typical D.I.Y. projects are relatively simple, like inserting a gene into bacteria to make them glow. Producing viruses involves much more expensive equipment to do things like rearing host cells. “It’s not going to happen in someone’s basement,” he said.

3.  ...Nor do these amateurs have the years of training it takes to grow viruses successfully. “It’s like I say, ‘I want to be a four-star chef,’ ” said Dr. Jorgensen, the president of Genspace, who worked with viruses for her Ph.D. “You can read about it, but unless someone teaches you side by side, I don’t think you’re going to get far.”

-Chris

On Tuesday, March 6, 2012 1:51:41 PM UTC-5, Bryan Bishop wrote:

[Cory Geesaman]

For the second attempt (the new Google groups seems to be a bit glitchy when trying to post):

From what I've heard of the mutH5N1 research it sounds like something that could feasibly be created with a medieval grasp of alchemy and an animal abuse case - and it probably applies to many more instances than just that particular virus since selective breeding is the tried and true method of engineering organisms for thousands of years.  So yes, there seems to be an inherent risk involved - but it is damn foolish to even try it, from an amateur sense: I want to synthesize a Vaccine for Agamid Adenovirus - but am waiting until such time as I have a good lab to prevent the release of any form of the virus and one that will pass an EPA inspection.  I might have tried with less precautionary measures in place if not posting about it in the DIYbio community and learning more about the subject from the discussion that came about - but that certainly isn't an indictment of the DIYbio group and it seems unfair to suggest that DIYbio could have any hand in this fear-mongering nonsense.  The media has an agenda, it's best to just avoid them and ignore them until they go bankrupt.

[Jason Bobe]

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 2:13 PM, Chris Templeman <christe...@gmail.com> wrote:

However, in particular three quotes got really got to me (2 from prominent members of the DIYBio community) that I felt the discussion is warranted as those who are the 'public face' of DIY Bio aren't necessarily doing a great job of raising the conversation to where it should be, IMHO.  

1.  ...D.I.Y. biologists sometimes laugh at the sinister powers people think they have. “People overestimate our technological abilities and underestimate our ethics,” said Jason Bobe, a founder of DIYbio.org.

@Chris: I think its a great opportunity to raise the discussion, and I very much would be interested to hear your ideas.

I didn't like the caricature of me laughing at sinister powers (flu is very serious and no laughing matter, obviously).    

For context, I made the statement during a conversation with Carl about how there has been a lot of anxiety about amateur or DIY biology from the beginning.  In the early days of the boston group, we would hold meeting involving simple molecular biology like extracting DNA from strawberries and running a gel, then open the newspaper and read portrayals of DIY biology that made it sounds like amateurs were routinely doing work equivalent to the Manhattan Project...

“The ability to create nasty pathogens like your hybrid rabies virus in your bathroom is becoming easier and easier…this is much easier than trying to get enough fissile material to make a nuclear bomb…” Homeland Security Today, Dec 10, 2009

The funny part of the conversation I had w/ Carl, was the idea that FBI agents actually face the same dilemma as DIY biologists in how they are portrayed by media, i.e. huge technical ability (envision Men in Black underground command center) and no ethics.

Anyway, the discussion about appropriate use of biotechnology is an important one for DIY biologists to participate in, for sure.

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Chris Templeman wrote:

I really want to know where this discussion is happening.  Please point me to these scientists, leaders, etc... or maybe my understanding of biology is all wrong and large scale disasters are not possible...

Well, some of the richest discussions recently have been in the area of synthetic biology and those have included lots of discussions about mitigating large scale disasters too.  

I would start with the President's Commission recent report:

http://bioethics.gov/cms/synthetic-biology-report

Other articles:

http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v25/n6/abs/nbt0607-627.html

http://arep.med.harvard.edu/pdf/Church05.pdf

http://arep.med.harvard.edu/SBP/Church_Biohazard04c.htm

There have been quite a bit of popular articles covering the issues too:

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-promise-and-perils-of-synthetic-biology

http://arep.med.harvard.edu/pdf/Church_Seed09.pdf

http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2010/07/09/regulation_of_synthetic_biology_industry_urged/

Also, I'm really disappointed by Jason in the article making it sound like everyone subscribed on this list has agreed to work under Jason's rules/oversight. Not cool... 

@Bryan: What led you to say that? Can you point me to the quote in the article?

Thanks,

Jason

 

[Jason Bobe]

On Tuesday, March 6, 2012 2:35:14 PM UTC-5, Cory Geesaman wrote:

For the second attempt (the new Google groups seems to be a bit glitchy when trying to post):

BTW, I lost three draft posts this evening and switched to the email interface.  Very buggy, hopefully its temporary.

Jason

[Bryan Bishop]

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 8:49 PM, Jason Bobe <jaso...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Also, I'm really disappointed by Jason in the article making it sound like
>>> everyone subscribed on this list has agreed to work under Jason's
>>> rules/oversight. Not cool...
>
> @Bryan: What led you to say that? Can you point me to the quote in the article?

Quote:

> Those falling costs have spurred the rise of the D.I.Y. biology movement; they
> have also generated concerns about what a do-it-yourselfer might be able
> accomplish.
>
> D.I.Y. biologists sometimes .... said Jason Bobe, a founder of DIYbio.org...
> ....
> “There ought to be oversight down the road,” Mr. Bobe said. But he and
> others question whether holding back scientific information can reduce the risk.

So, some thoughts towards answering your question Jason...

I can't tell the degree to which you're being misrepresented in the
article, versus the degree to which you genuinely believe that members
of this community believe in oversight and regulation-- if that's the
case, you certainly wouldn't be alone, there are many people who want
to completely regulate science into the stone ages. But in general,
not biohackers.

In a fearpiece about biohacking, the combination of you claiming to
represent biohackers (or even have any sort of degree of control over
amatuer biohackers), plus the combination of you saying there ought to
be regulation, is actually alienating to biohackers.

And anyway, it's sort of misinforming the public about how hacking
works; it's not like there's some secret hacker convention every year
that decides who is going to hack what. Although, if you really need
to talk about regulation in the biohacking scene, I think you could
potentially talk about the code of ethics that the individual
community labs have drawn up, for sure.

thanks.

[Daniel C.]

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 11:17 PM, Bryan Bishop <kan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In a fearpiece about biohacking, the combination of you claiming to
> represent biohackers (or even have any sort of degree of control over
> amatuer biohackers), plus the combination of you saying there ought to
> be regulation, is actually alienating to biohackers.

I'm not really seeing, given those quotes, how he's claiming to
represent anyone.

-Dan

[Bryan Bishop]

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 11:18 PM, Daniel C. wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 11:17 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote:
>> In a fearpiece about biohacking, the combination of you claiming to
>> represent biohackers (or even have any sort of degree of control over
>> amatuer biohackers), plus the combination of you saying there ought to
>> be regulation, is actually alienating to biohackers.
>
> I'm not really seeing, given those quotes, how he's claiming to
> represent anyone.

He's quoted as the "founder of diybio.org". But in a fluff piece like
this, exact readings like "DIYbio.org isn't the same thing as DIY
biology itself" are not to be expected, especially when it's not
elucidated at all in the article. In the article, Jason's the closest
thing representing DIY biology. In fact, after having someone read the
article, you'd be hard pressed to not identify Jason as pretending to
represent diy biology in this article...

Also, to be fair- if we're talking about an exact reading of the
article, Jason was probably the one who pointed out to the reporter
that "limiting information" does not necessarily "limit risk
exposure".

[Cathal Garvey]

I'm with Daniel here, I'm not feeling the vibe you describe.

In any case, as Jason has already revealed, and as I'd have guessed in any case, his quotes were divorced from their original context and used for scare fodder in the piece. I wouldn't hold him accountable.

When someone from NYT asked to interview me, I agreed on condition that I could preview the piece and have my name removed if it was a hit-piece. I got lucky, but you can't tell which reporters are earnest and trustworthy, and ehich have a hidden agenda, until the article's out.

Heck, I narrowly missed getting tied up in the recent BBC hit piece: another stroke of luck.

Do domething edgy, and some people will be fascinated, others petrified. I try to placate the latter category and don't pay much heed if they throw mud around. I'll be lucky if there aren't greenpeace acolytes at my door within the year, after all: what's a few news articles against death threats?

Bryan Bishop <kan...@gmail.com> wrote:

>--
>You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>Groups "DIYbio" group.
>To post to this group, send email to diy...@googlegroups.com.
>To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>diybio+un...@googlegroups.com.
>For more options, visit this group at
>http://groups.google.com/group/diybio?hl=en.

--
Sent from K-9 Mail on Android

[Chris Templeman]

@Jason, thanks a bunch for the response and thank you very much for the links.  this is what I was looking for.  

I appreciate your clarification and I should not take the last part of your quote ("... underestimate our ethics") lightly.  I find myself often thinking about the technology too much and not relying on the good of people.  

I am not singling out an individual here, but the discussion I wanted to start was around this idea:

I am very optimistic about the power of synbio to shape our world and as such there will the ability to shape it positively and negatively.  I for one, as an instrument designer / technology developer are concerned about making equipment that will be used for...well evil.  I hear people (amateurs and professionals alike) say that there is not a risk of people in the garage making the next killer virus because we don't have the skills and we don't have the equipment.  Is that true?  I am interested in DIY Bio because I believe in the great power that synbio will have in our world.  I believe that it is a good idea to democratize equipment so that more people get involved.  So more people can do amazing feats on their own.  So I have a hard time reconciling the argument individuals can't do incredible feats (good and bad) on their own with my view of the future where they can.  I don't want to make instruments for people so they can just rehash old experiments.  I want to make instruments so that pioneers can make discoveries and shape the world.   If we can shape the world then how do we do it safely and assure the world that we are doing this for good?  I think those people telling the world not to worry because we don't have the technology nor the skills is doing a disservice to those who want to be taken seriously and do cutting edge work.

BTW, Carl Zimmer is pretty active in social media especially Google+.  I have been following him for a while and he is responsive to readers who directly address him through G+ so I would suggest people directly address him with your concerns about the nature of the article and things being out of context.

-Chris

On Tuesday, March 6, 2012 9:49:19 PM UTC-5, Jason Bobe wrote:

[Jason Bobe]

On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 12:20 PM, Chris Templeman <christe...@gmail.com> wrote:

@Jason, thanks a bunch for the response and thank you very much for the links.  this is what I was looking for.  

I appreciate your clarification and I should not take the last part of your quote ("... underestimate our ethics") lightly.  I find myself often thinking about the technology too much and not relying on the good of people.  

I am not singling out an individual here, but the discussion I wanted to start was around this idea:

I am very optimistic about the power of synbio to shape our world and as such there will the ability to shape it positively and negatively.  I for one, as an instrument designer / technology developer are concerned about making equipment that will be used for...well evil.  I hear people (amateurs and professionals alike) say that there is not a risk of people in the garage making the next killer virus because we don't have the skills and we don't have the equipment.  Is that true?  I am interested in DIY Bio because I believe in the great power that synbio will have in our world.  I believe that it is a good idea to democratize equipment so that more people get involved.  So more people can do amazing feats on their own.  So I have a hard time reconciling the argument individuals can't do incredible feats (good and bad) on their own with my view of the future where they can.  I don't want to make instruments for people so they can just rehash old experiments.  I want to make instruments so that pioneers can make discoveries and shape the world.   If we can shape the world then how do we do it safely and assure the world that we are doing this for good?  I think those people telling the world not to worry because we don't have the technology nor the skills is doing a disservice to those who want to be taken seriously and do cutting edge work.

I think this is an excellent set of topics for personal reflection and group discussion.  

I think everyone should want to make policy about technology that has a basis in practical reality (versus fantasies of what might be real in the future).  So in the course of discussions like this, people want to know what is real today and sometimes that is not always obvious, as the bird flu debate very clearly illuminates.  This is true in physics too (Are teenagers really making yellow cake in their garages today? Should we worry or celebrate?).   

It is important to be vigilant about potential misuse.  If misuse is potentially very serious, or even potentially catastrophic, then it would be a luxury to deal only with the practical realities of today and not think about tomorrow or next week or next year, etc.  Another point of reference for reading: the other day in Nature, there was an article: "Four steps to avoid a synthetic-biology disaster". (One of the co-authors is Todd Kuiken, who was quoted in the NYTimes and attends many DIYbio events).

On a much deeper level, as a society we must also decide how much we want to organize the world and our ethics according to "worst case scenarios".  For that, you might look at George Annas's new book Worse Case Bioethics. 

 

BTW, Carl Zimmer is pretty active in social media especially Google+.  I have been following him for a while and he is responsive to readers who directly address him through G+ so I would suggest people directly address him with your concerns about the nature of the article and things being out of context.

I don't have a bone to pick w/ Carl.  I don't think his intention was to write a hit piece on amateur science and I don't think he took any my quotes "out-of-context".  The fact that he reported is that people involved in reviewing the publication of the flu research -- like Michael T. Osterholm (a member of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity or NSABB) -- are worried about amateur biohackers working in their garages.

I do think Carl shrunk the context of our conversation considerably...all the way down from a 1 hour phone conversation to less than 20 words.  It was a short article, after all.

To be sure, I also think the piece was peculiar, especially for singling out amateurs -- of all things.  If you've hung around the DIYbio mailing list for very long, you know that it is almost cliché at this point.

If you read the much longer essay in the New Yorker this week by Michael Specter, folks on the NSABB fret about all sorts things beyond amateur biologists, such as "...an incredibly smug kid at Harvard....or a lone crazy employee with access to these sequences...We have seen many times that accidental releases of dangerous microbes are not rare..." (quoting Osterholm in the article).

Jason

[Cory Geesaman]

On Thursday, March 8, 2012 7:36:44 PM UTC-5, Jason Bobe wrote:

I think everyone should want to make policy about technology that has a basis in practical reality (versus fantasies of what might be real in the future).  So in the course of discussions like this, people want to know what is real today and sometimes that is not always obvious, as the bird flu debate very clearly illuminates.  This is true in physics too (Are teenagers really making yellow cake in their garages today? Should we worry or celebrate?).   

 That article is definitely a scare-piece as well.  A Fusor is safe (for that matter it would be hard to find an example of dangerous physics that could be performed by an unwitting individual because if you know how to do something dangerous [and don't kill yourself doing it] you also likely know how to do it safely and you are going to be a threat to yourself long before you are to anyone else).  Though if you want to look at actual dangers in physics just look at the LHC: the probability of not producing a black hole that would destroy the Earth as seen at the start of the experiment was below 5 Sigma, more likely than their faster than light results and more likely than any current evidence for the Higgs existing.  It does take a pretty significant undertaking for a physics experiment to pose a serious threat to anyone, especially when you consider the general cost of energy and how well you can transmit that energy over a given area (though I for one would strongly prefer the mental midgets at CERN focus on precision experimentation at far lower costs than just haphazardly smashing things together and watching the results - but the predisposition of retardation might prevent any such experiments from being devised - the LHC on the whole strikes me as using nukes to determine that hot air rises).

[Andrew Barney]

It's been a while since i've seen a serious discussion about this, so i say let us take the opportunity to discuss it. Yeah, sure it's been discussed before and in some ways it is tiring to see the same old fears reappearing over and over, but lets face the reality that it will probably be that way for awhile. There are a few things i see that I'd like to bring up. The first is that i dont think the focus should be solely on amateur scientists. Is there a danger for something bad to happen or someone to abuse their position? Yeah, but the same could be said for thousands of other situations too. I think it's silly be fearful of amateurs creating a hypothetical mutant pathogen, but if your going to worry about it then you should also worry about doctors and other professionals. In my mind there are plenty of various organisms out there that are already dangerous without needing to be engineered or toyed with. Someone sadistic enough and determined enough could probably cause great harm already with what nature has already let out of the bag. Clamping down hard on amateur scientists isn't going to fix that potential problem.

Should there be some sort of regulation or oversight in an attempt to create a safer world? I don't know. I personally have mixed views about it since it's such a complex issue. On the one hand there is potential for harm and there is the possibility that some of those dangers might be able to be controlled by some sort of regulation. But do i think that all the dangers can be regulated in this way? No, i highly doubt it. And in some ways i fear the regulations themselves could create bigger problems than having little regulation and promoting an open exchange of information. Yeah there is the thought that too much regulation often stifles creativity and innovation, but also the fact that sometimes making something sound unattainable and deviant is enough to overwhelm the curiosity and determination from those who want to get behind the locked door. The old saying is that locks are only meant to keep honest people honest, and i think the same could be true of regulation. I dont know much about the economics or politics of the illegal drug industry, but i had heard that when some of them became illegal the demand for them increased, and when it got harder to get them through on land it prompted other sneaky circumventions like drug submarines. Maybe i'm going overboard with this analogy, but the point i was trying to make is that huge regulations aren't necessarily a one-size-fits-all answer, and since it's a complex issue it probably deserves quite a bit of discussion and insight.

-Andrew

On Mar 8, 8:03 pm, Cory Geesaman <c...@geesaman.com> wrote:
> On Thursday, March 8, 2012 7:36:44 PM UTC-5, Jason Bobe wrote:
>
> > I think everyone should want to make policy about technology that has a
> > basis in practical reality (versus fantasies of what might be real in the
> > future).  So in the course of discussions like this, people want to know
> > what is real today and sometimes that is not always obvious, as the bird
> > flu debate very clearly illuminates.  This is true in physics too (Are

> > teenagers really making yellow cake in their garages today?<http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-02/boy-who-played-fusion?p...> Should

[Pat]

Technology is a neutral entity and it can be used for good or ill, but
it is neither good or ill itself. The reason a lot of people fear
technology is due to media sensation and sometimes lack of
understanding. Why it may be possible for someone to create a super
virus it is just as possible and more likely that someone will be
stabbed with a knife and nearly every house hold in the world has
knifes. Should we start regulating knifes for fear of people getting
stabbed? No. What should happen is that there are mechanism in place
to self police and punish those that will use something for ill.

And as an aside viruses have been evolving for as long as their was
life on earth and before then. It is an arrogant anthropomorphic
notion that human will be the ones to create the super virus. I'm not
saying it is impossible but come on nature has given us smallpox and
ebola. I think it is healthier to fear them then something that COULD
happen in the future.

[Cathal Garvey]

Frankly, I never doubt human ingenuity, and I wouldn't be surprised if
Humans are better at making "Deadly" than nature. After all, the
intention of wild viruses isn't to kill, it's to reproduce. Humans can
impose an artificial bias towards death at the expense of reproductive
success, and bioweapons programs in the past have successfully done this.

My argument against all this nonsense is more practical. On the one hand
is the assumption that access to technology naturally leads to creation
of destructive tools, but that's clearly not the case with, for example,
electronics; people don't use electronics skills to make rail guns with
the intention of killing anyone. The only case of an electronics nerd
making anything truly scary, namely a cruise missile chasse and guidance
system, was in the name of proving it could be done. So while the
capacity is all there, and has been for decades, we've never seen it used.

Secondly and in relation to the above, is the assumption that because
haxors make computer viruses all the time, biohackers will make deadly
viruses. Be on the watch, citizen. But, that's nonsense because human
nature weighs the destruction of life far more severely than the
interruption of computer services. Also, most viruses that are
deliberately malign in the modern age are made for profit; to create
botnets useful for spam, or farmed out for computation, or for DDOSing.

People who are creative enough to pursue a hobby or career in science or
engineering a rarely aimless enough to choose violence to solve their
problems. And those who *are* evil enough to use ingenuity to kill are
already well funded: national biowarfare programs are known to exist in
the US, Russia, probably UK/France/Japan etc., and could easily be
active in less predictable states such as Israel, Iran and North Korea.

Fact is; if there's a bioterrorism or biowarfare threat, it's already
been in existence for ten or more years, and amateurs are *not* it.

--
www.indiebiotech.com
twitter.com/onetruecathal
joindiaspora.com/u/cathalgarvey
PGP Public Key: http://bit.ly/CathalGKey

[Mega]

> People who are creative enough to pursue a hobby or career in science or
> engineering a rarely aimless enough to choose violence to solve their
> problems. And those who *are* evil enough to use ingenuity to kill are
> already well funded: national biowarfare programs are known to exist in
> the US, Russia, probably UK/France/Japan etc., and could easily be
> active in less predictable states such as Israel, Iran and North Korea.
>
> Fact is; if there's a bioterrorism or biowarfare threat, it's already
> been in existence for ten or more years, and amateurs are *not* it.

Yeah....

And you must not forget:

The creator of a human virus is a human too. He also is in danger of
killing himself by playing with dangerous material. Who'd do that?
Rather government labs that have the equippment.

[Pat]

@Cathal, Truth. It won't be people in the DIY movement it will be
bioterrorist.

[EJ]

 
On Tuesday, March 13, 2012 9:03:04 AM UTC-4, Pat wrote:

@Cathal, Truth. It won't be people in the DIY movement it will be
bioterrorist.

For the record, that was the first thing I said to Carl when he called to interview me :-)

We talked for about an hour and he kept trying to make me say that the DIY community had the capability to make the mutated H5N1 now. Then he tried to get me to say that kids could do it accidentally. Then he asked me what about five or 10 years down the road, could we do it then?

He interviewed the FBI agent who interfaces with DIYbio and is friendly with Genspace. He had nothing but positive things to say about our community and not a word of that made it into the article. Instead they quoted a 'biosecurity expert' from academia who knows nothing about us.

Eri Gentry and I drafted a response in the form of a letter to the editor. It was never published.

[Bryan Bishop]

On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 2:56 PM, EJ <ellenjo...@aol.com> wrote:

Eri Gentry and I drafted a response in the form of a letter to the editor. It was never published.

Thanks for letting us know, and more power to you for that..

[Cathal Garvey]

Wow, that's a seriously telling view from the inside!
Have you guys considered publishing your letter as an "Open Letter" online, given the editor's unwillingness to offer your alternative viewpoints in print?
-Cathal

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DIYbio" group.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/diybio/-/9XJYqo1LbCcJ.

To post to this group, send email to diy...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to diybio+un...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/diybio?hl=en.

[Daniel C.]

On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 4:06 PM, Cathal Garvey <cathal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Have you guys considered publishing your letter as an "Open Letter" online,
> given the editor's unwillingness to offer your alternative viewpoints in
> print?
> -Cathal

Please do this. Or send your response to another publication, who can
then get their digs in at their competitor. (Is that journalistic bad
form? I dunno how these things work.)

-Dan

[EJ]

Yes, I keep meaning to put it on our blog, at least. I'd like it in the public record...

We also considered going head to head with Carl on his blog, but rejected the idea because it really would not accomplish anything. He would always get the last word, and although the article was slanted in many ways (e.g. all the quotes from the DIY people appeared on the article's second page, which most folks probably never read as they skim the paper for news) it was truthful.

I knew the minute I got the email from him describing the article's premise that it was a no-win situation. If you refuse to talk to them then it looks like you are hiding something, and if you do talk to them you are always aware that they will attempt to take what you say out of context to support the premise of the article. Given the situation, I think all three of us reluctant spokespersons did pretty well.

[drllau]

http://sciblogs.co.nz/molecular-matters/2012/03/19/chemical-forensics-seeking-clues-at-the-molecular-level/

- report by the Center for a New American Security

“a generally skilled chemist can produce a chemical weapon, whereas a generally trained biologist is likely to have more difficulty propagating and conserving an unfamiliar pathogen.”

 

I don't see the govt confiscating glassware. The lack of context and scaremongering makes a case for software such as rbutr.
http://shanegreenup.com/2012/01/mapping-the-discourse-of-the-internet/

There will always be Frankenstein luddites, but the point is to show that any profession has a set of ethics behind them. Classic example, hackers love making emulators and playing nostalgic games. However, a strict definition is that this is copyright infringement subject to criminal prosecution. However, what the group did was only release emulators which were based on obsolete hardware and only linked to abandonware. I find hackers (cf crackers & P2P torrents) to be very conscious of the economic harm and moral dilemmas in their work. Unfortunately this is not well known and exploited by vested interested in painting a picture of hippy anarcists. Sigh ... out with the cluebat (again).

Lawrence
http://www.linkedin.com/in/drllau

[John Griessen]

On 03/23/2012 03:32 PM, EJ wrote:
> Given the situation, I think all three of us reluctant spokespersons did pretty well.

Thanks.

[Andrew Barney]

+1 for the publishing of your response as an "open letter" of sorts.

I kind of published an open letter once. It was written to the people in charge of the FIRST Robotics competition. I basically asked that they try and adopt a more open source philosophy since it seemed to be compatible with their mission statement. I think i had asked for some input from some other people before i sent it off to them. The letter turned out to be well received and as a direct result released their hardware designs and made their CAD files freely accessible. That letter is probably still floating around on the Internet somewhere. But i say publish it, because you never know what kind of good things will come from it. Maybe nothing, but you never know.

[cluckj]

In the future it might be helpful to ask for as a condition of the interview, a copy of the article before it goes to print (or is in an early editorial phase), or which quotes the author plans on using from you. I have to do this if I want to publish interview quotes, but my anthropology work is a bit different than a journalists'...

Jon

[cluckj]

[Phil]

Do you need gene synthesis to make the next "killer flu" or just a few barnyard animals?

-Chris

Historically, barnyard animals are the way most deadly epidemics are created.
These "peaceful" farmers are a dangerous threat to national security and should not be allowed to let these animals roam freely in the open air.
All farmyard animals should be kept in negative air-pressure containment areas and subject to monitoring by a federal agency on a continual basis.

[Chris Templeman]

@Phil  +1 ...great analogy.

[Jonathan Cline]

On Monday, March 5, 2012 3:00:59 PM UTC-8, Chris Templeman wrote:

Interesting article from the standpoint of the completely disparate points of view. 

 

The new rules.

1- Don't talk to journalists.  Especially jealous journalists who wish they were as smart (and as good looking and as well paid) as you.
 Rule 1 subsection:  Always remember where journalists come from.  Many journalists are just slightly elevated from paid bloggers.  Journalists were those kids who dropped out of "those hard subjects like Algebra" because they wanted to go smoke pot and gaze at their navels instead of study and later make headlines.  Sorry you guys didn't make the cut, oh wait, no I'm not.

2- Don't talk to the feds.  I have strong ethics and no morals and I am only out to serve myself and the enhancement of my own telomeres.  I admit being only out to serve myself; government employees rarely do.
 Rule 2 subsection:  Talk to the feds only if you're paid in dollars to do so.

3- Raise your hand if you want to help start the zombie apocalypse.  (Looks around, everyone's hands are raised.)   Alright then.  Put on your lab coats and continue reading.

 


## Jonathan Cline
## jcl...@ieee.org
## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223
########################

[Cory Geesaman]

I could agree with Rule 1, but where do rules 2 and 3 come from?  It seems to me the feds (not necessarily all government, but usually when I've heard that term used it is in reference to the FBI or similar groups who are actively interacting with DIYbio) are one group we should actually spend the time to keep informed and have on our side - since ultimately if the hippy journalists get their way the feds would be the ones breaking down doors to quench the mass hysteria without a better channel by which to communicate.

[Jonathan Cline]

This post is going in the FAQ.

Irresponsible journalists should not be tolerated by the public (i.e. non-objective, sensationalist-seeking).

I'd like to place the response in the FAQ too, cc; it to me or post the link when it's up somewhere permanent.