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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Following a long-standing CGS tradition, we present a selection of our favorite Biopolitical Times posts of the past year.
In 2025, we published up to four posts every month, written by 12 authors (staff, consultants and allies), some in collaboration and one simply credited to CGS.
These titles are presented in chronological order, except for three In Memoriam notices, which follow. Many more posts that are worth your time can be found in the archive. Scroll down and “VIEW...
