Interdisciplinarity
By Jonathan Kahn, Biopolitical Times guest contributor
| 01. 24. 2011
In 2009, the director of the National Science Foundation gave a key note
address at an interdisciplinary conference on synthetic biology
sponsored by the National Academies. The director opened with the
following joke:
“A synthetic biologist and a social scientist await death
at the hands of an executioner. The executioner asks the social
scientist if he has a final wish. Yes, he says, I have some new findings
on the societal and ethical dimensions of synthetic biology and I want
to present them to the scientific community before I die. The
executioner then turns to the synthetic biologist and asks if she has a
final wish. Yes, she said, just shoot me before I have to listen to that
lecture.”
It’s a good joke. I have sat through many lectures over the years
that make me sympathize with the synthetic biologist. Lest he offend
anyone in the audience, the director quickly followed the joke with a
disclaimer that certainly no one in the present audience harbored such
sentiments. Nonetheless, the joke is instructive on several levels.
Synthetic
biology is merely...
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