The First Scientist to “Play God” Was Not Craig Venter
Biology Blurred the Line Between Natural and Synthetic Long Ago
SOURCE: Wikimedia Commons/public domain
A German stamp commemorating the 100th anniversary of the death of Friedrich Wöhler, who first synthesized the organic compound urea from non-organic chemicals.
“God formed the man from the dust in the ground.” —Genesis 2:7
The announcement by Craig Venter last week that his eponymous institute has “rebooted” a cell using a made-from-scratch length of DNA has excited the usual round of pronouncements that a milestone has been reached, that Venter is the first scientist to truly “play God.” This ambiguous assertion is in some cases accompanied by demands that synthetic genomics cease and desist, and that if necessary there should be a government ban. The world of science got a remarkably similar shock in 1828 when Friedrich Wohler first synthesized an organic compound from non-organic chemicals. But more on that in a moment.
The objections are of two kinds. The first is that this technique significantly aggravates threats of bioerror, enabling some unintended environmental threat, or bioterror, the hostile use of synthetic biology. The second objection is that, in creating from non-life (in this case, a string of chemicals arranged as base pairs), a fundamental line has been breached, that God-playing in the laboratory has finally and truly arrived.
The first objection has some merit, though not as much as is often claimed—at least not in the short or mid-term—and is not unique to synthetic biology. New forms of governance will be needed, as is the case for all innovation and in particular for modern biology. The possibility of human error will need to be addressed as it always is, through education, cultural change among scientists, systems of accountability and record keeping, and perhaps licensure and accreditation. While we may not agree that Venter’s experiment is “the quintessential Pandora’s box moment,” improved governance of biotechnology at both the domestic and international levels for biotechnology should be on the agenda.
Biological weapons for tactical purposes have never much panned out. Anyone who’s interested still has quite a selection provided by Mother Nature; it’s hardly necessary to order DNA synthesizers. Building a stronger and more uniform public health system is still our best defense, along with a good dose of public trust in the event it becomes necessary for authorities to request citizen cooperation in curtailing travel. In the long run, while some will be tempted to try to impose phony “secrecy” systems, the experience with the atomic bomb should have taught us the limitation of that approach. And unlike atomic physics, it is increasingly easy to do biotechnology in modest settings. Openness is the best response to dual use, the fact this new technology could be used for ill and for good.
(And speaking of the Bomb, it’s worth pondering why people get so much more nervous about a new biology paper than they do all those thousands of nuclear warheads around the world.)
The second objection, that Craig Venter and his colleagues have played God by creating synthetic life, thereby crossing a line, has of course been heard many times before. In the case of Venter et al.’s work however, no less a theological authority than the Vatican pronounced it acceptable if used to treat disease and clean up the environment. Yet at least one official of the Italian bishops’ conference said that scientists “should never forget there is only one creator: God.”
Whether synthetic biology brushes up too closely to this theological boundary or not, scientists long ago ventured well into that frontier. At least if one takes the formulation of Genesis 2:7 as the definition of God-playing, that distinction appears to have first been achieved in 1828, just ten years after Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein established the paradigm for worries about hubristic science. Friedrich Wohler, while teaching chemistry in Berlin, applied ammonium chloride to silver isocyanate to produce urea, the main nitrogen-carrying compound found in the urine of mammals. In so doing he synthesized an organic substance from non-organic matter. Life from dust. It was something the chemistry of the day took to be impossible, assuming that life could only come from life. Wohler’s modest experiment proved them wrong, utterly changed organic chemistry, and laid down a philosophical marker—or perhaps kicked one over.
What is clear is that the latest event in synthetic biology is one step in a long path. Whatever challenge it may pose to our contemporary assumptions, it would be foolish to reject wisdom from any source in helping us decide where the path should lead, divine ones included.
Jonathan D. Moreno, Ph.D., is the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor of Ethics and Professor of Medical Ethics and of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Editor-in-Chief of Science Progress.
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