Tag: responsible innovation
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‘Pathways’ in science and society
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood; And sorry I could not travel both; And be one traveler, Long I stood, And looked down one as far as I could, To where it bent in the undergrowth.” (Robert Frost, 1916) I have walked along many paths, even pathways, on my journey through life. Recently, I…
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On books, circuits and life
I have recently been trying to understand CRISPR, gene editing and genome editing. While reading about these new developments in genomics, I noticed that in the avalanche of news reports reference is only rarely made to synthetic biology (on 5 January there were 188 articles on CRISPR in Major World Newspapers on the LexisNexis news…
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On the metaphorical origins of gene drives
This morning I woke up to a bit of chat about ‘gene drive‘ – this year’s science breakthrough of the year –, first on twitter, then on the radio. This made me think about the use of terms like gene drive, gene driver, gene driving and where they come from. It also made me think…
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Making Science Public blog posts 2015: An overview
This year the Making Science Public blog has been dominated by two topics: climate change and synthetic biology. One topic is on the way out, so to speak, as the climate change focused project within our research programme is coming to an end. It will continue though in a new guise, in the shape of…
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Gene editing, metaphors and responsible language use
Last week I was following the progress of the International Summit on Human Gene Editing, which took place in Washington between 1 and 3 December, 2015. On the last day, I was looking at my twitter timeline and saw that Megan Allyse (a former PhD student) had posted information on a special issue devoted to…
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Synthetic biology comes to Nottingham (ESRC Festival of Social Science)
On Monday we are convening a public debate about synthetic biology and responsible research and innovation as part of the ESRC’s Festival of Social Science. You are all welcome to join us! Us means: Adam Rutherford as chair, Hilary Sutcliffe, Andrew Balmer, Klaus Winzer and Peter Licence on the panel (see brochure) and myself as…
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Synthetic Biology; or the Modern Prometheus
When waiting for a plane, I was randomly musing about synthetic biology, responsible innovation and stories – this is the result. Once upon a time there were Mary Shelley and her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary wrote Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus (first published in 1818; now available in twitter-form, as tweeted by Katie Reeves);…
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Science, hype and fun
In one of my early posts for this blog I talked about hype and about how hype can be used honestly and fraudulently. In one of my later posts I talked about CRISPR and how scientists are trying to deal with this gene editing technology responsibly. So I should have known better! Following the fun…
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Who is responsible for GM moths?
This is a joint post with Sarah Hartley, Making Science Public Research Fellow What is the role of the public in science? Should public concerns about scientific innovation be taken into account when regulating new technologies? Are some types of concerns more valid than others? These are fundamental questions about the governance of innovation, and the answers…
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Ta(l)king responsibility
In social science and policy circles there has been a lot of talk about Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). However, nobody quite knows yet what this means and how it works in the context of harsh economic realities. In the meantime, natural scientists have taken responsibility for their research and innovations in the context of…
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