Shape the future: engage with the challenge of synthetic biology

The present gains and future benefits of synthetic biology are too great for it to be written off with fear–mongering maxims. The present gains and future benefits of synthetic biology are too great for it to be written off with fear–mongering maxims”Playing God since 1660” reads the motto on the Royal Society’s sign in a scene from The Pirates!

In an Adventure with Scientists, the latest film from the makers of Wallace and Gromit. And now I can no longer enter the doors of our national science academy without quoting the Pirate Captain’s rallying cry, “Prepare to be boarded, nerds!”.Earlier this year I presented a BBC2 Horizon programme on synthetic biology. Our choice of title, Playing God, was not intended as a criticism of synthetic biologists, but rather to highlight an allegation they often face. Environmentalists, religious figures and sections of the media regularly use the phrase as a handy stick with which to beat those in the field. Scientists, they claim, are foolishly meddling in matters that should be left to the gods or nature.

To read this Guardian comment piece in full, click here.

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