Taking responsibility: Asilomar and its legacy

In February 1975, leading molecular biologists gathered at the Asilomar conference center on the California coast to evaluate risks of the emerging technology of recombinant DNA and to establish guidelines to govern research. The meeting is remembered as a defining moment in the making of molecular biology. Yet its legacy lies not in specific rules it developed but in the approach to scientific self-regulation that it crystallized. Five decades later, this near-mythic “meeting that changed the world” is held up as a precedent to celebrate and a model to emulate: Scientists take responsibility for governing themselves, solidifying public trust while securing future benefits of technology for society. But although this may elicit public acquiescence and secure scientific autonomy in the short run, ultimately it has engendered reactive distrust. The 50th anniversary affords a moment for taking stock of Asilomar’s legacy and its implications for science and democracy. Its lessons are difficult.

The Asilomar meeting is held up as an exemplar of how scientists can navigate between the Scylla of technological risk and the Charybdis of public reaction and overregulation (...