Both of this weeks papers deal in managing the hurdles faced by synthetic biology- and new fields of research in general, in regards to the principals leading it’s effective communication, regulation, and commercialization. While both papers advocate a congenial methodology of iterative oversight instead of deferring to the precautionary principle; there’s a great deal of skepticism that may be drawn to the competency of this approach in the real world. Take fracking for example, which has been practiced on the commercial scale for ten years and regulated in the same fashion as proposed in The Ethics of Synthetic Biology: Guiding Principles for Emerging Technologies and Synthetic biology confronts publics and policy makers: challenges for communication, regulation and commercialization. Fracking has received a continuous stream of criticism from many government agencies and the media over the course of it’s practice, but very little legislative action has taken place as a result.
The bureaucracy responsible for maintaining proportionality, distributive justice and procedural justice is both inflexible and inefficient; what chance does public involvement have in enacting decisive legislation? Without hype there is very little chance that the public will reach a definitive opinion. So, in the case of fracking and any emerging trend in technology treated in the same fashion, the only regulation enacted seems to be that which prevents complete obvert catastrophe. With this skepticism in mind I feel resigned to support the status quo, as I find the alternative to be completely unproductive.
Here I am in general agreement with you...in that I don't see the "machinery" we have in place as being up to the task of the sort of thoughtful regulation that suggested by Gutmann. The principles are sensible; the frameworks of implementation...missing. The "iterative" processes, whatever they are, are likely to be a messy affair.
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