MainlyMartian

Mainly Marc

This is really a placeholder post to tell people that:

1) This is still Oliver Morton's blog, but is currently being used very rarely and fitfully. It is still in principle devoted to matters martian, but for the time being I'm not updating. The set of posts on methane on Mars can be found here, and observations on the life and death of Beagle 2 can be found here. The big wodge of stuff on synthetic biology from May 2006 is here because of a snafu that stopped me blogging live to the Nature Newsblog over the relevant weekend. It is of little or no planetary science value, though interesting in other ways.

2) If you're a friend, associate or indeed enemy who has lost track of me, perhaps due to the interruption of my abq email address, you can reach me via gmail as oemorton, or at nature.com as o.morton.

3) The Marc made by the Domaine Ott is I think the best truly strong (>50%) liquor I have ever drunk. Or at least it seemed so on Sunday night.

Synthetic Biology 2.0: Nature product

I meant to do a wrap-up post, but travel and poor connectivity intervened. Rob Carlson had a last post on the conference that I found intriguing, but  I will content myself by pointing to Erika Check's news report on the meeting in Nature, and an editorial that accompanied it. Here's the nub of the argument:

Self-governance need not and should not be exclusive — it does not preclude other forms of governance, any more than the possession of conscience makes redundant the strictures of law. It is hard not to suspect that the problem with self-governance from the point of view of the letter-writers is that it could go some way to addressing potential problems that would make good campaigning issues.

The ability of human societies to modify and transform biological systems will increase more in this century than it has in the hundred centuries since the dawn of agriculture, regardless of whether the transformation unfolds under the rubric of 'synthetic biology'. Or, at least, we must hope that it will — as the only credible alternative is a future in which massive social upheaval, armed conflict or natural disaster halts the progress of scientific knowledge. The challenge is to foster a matching, or at least sufficient, increase in the wisdom and accountability with which these abilities are used.

That challenge will require changes in the law and customs, in ideology and theology, and in education and economics. No scientific community can be expected to shoulder all that on its own, and nor should it. Scientists who are alive to the possibilities of change, anxious to keep their house in order and be seen to be doing so, and keen to discuss the issues with the world, are part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Update: I'm informed by the excellent Kevin Costa that the webcast of the SB2.0 talks is now archived for online viewing here, and will soon be added to Google Video for podcasting. The community declaration, which is still a work in progress as of June 13th,  can be viewed here.