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Emerging Technologies and

a Sustainable, Healthy, Just World

Will our Genetically Modified Grandchildren Use Nanotech Nets to Harvest Cloned Fish

on a Geo-engineered Planet?

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Marcy Darnovsky,

PhDAssociate Executive

Director

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Human Biotech, Nanotech, Synthetic Biology and More

Friday, Nov 6 (here and now!) Policy, Politics &

What Funders Can Do

Friday, Oct 23

Introduction to the Challenges & Opportunitieshttp://www.geneticsandsociety.org/downloads/emerging_technologies_webinar.ppt

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Appropriate emerging technologies(some need to be handled with care)

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Emerging technologiesEmerging technologiesof concernof concern

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Converging and emerging

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International agreements

World HealthOrganization

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Other countries

The United Kingdom

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Jurgen Habermas"The breadth of biotechnological interventions raises moral questions that are not simply difficult in the familiar sense but are of an altogether different kind."

Political philosophers & scholars

Michael Sandel“Changing our nature to fit the world, rather than the other way around, is the deepest form of disempowerment.”

Dorothy Roberts““Selecting Selecting children’s abilities, children’s abilities, sex, or race…can sex, or race…can reinforce an unjust reinforce an unjust value system that value system that privileges some privileges some over others.”over others.”

George Annas““No individual No individual scientist or scientist or corporation has the corporation has the social or moral social or moral warrant to alter or warrant to alter or endanger the endanger the human species.”human species.”

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Paul Hawken“It is not an exaggeration to compare human germline engineering with nuclear technology. While the horror of atomic weapons is the destruction of human civilization, the shadow cast by engineering Homo sapiens is the obliteration of what it means to be a human.”

Environmentalists

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Literature and film

Margaret Atwood“Very soon, RejoovenEsense hoped to hit the market with…totally chosen babies that would incorporate any feature, physical or mental or spiritual, that the buyer might wish to select…”

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Growing awareness and concern

• Women’s health orgs• Environmentalists • Scientists & physicians • Progressive religious

bodies • Disability rights orgs • Racial justice orgs

• Human & civil rights • Indigenous peoples • LGBTQ groups • Health & science CSOs• World sports community• Bioethicists• Civil liberties orgs• Patient advocates

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International NGO conference

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Think tanks and publications

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Policy and advocacy groups

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What is to be done?

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2010-2013 The Tarrytown Initiative

Tarrytown House Estate and Conference Center

The Tarrytown meetings will address the promises and challenges that new human biotechnologies and related technologies pose for a healthy, just and sustainable human future.

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David H. GustonProfessor of Political Science

Co-Director, Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes

Director, Center for Nanotechnology in SocietyArizona State University

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Anticipatory Governance, I

“Competent social scientists should work hand-in-hand with natural scientists, so that problems may be solved as they arise, and so that many of them may not arise in the first instance.”

Anticipate: from ante- and capere, “to take [into possession]” “beforehand”; related to capable and capacity and not a synonym for “expect,” “predict,” or “foresee”

Detlev Bronk

The pumpkin or the tiger? If science is puzzle-solving, when do we begin to pay attention?

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Anticipatory Governance, II

• Not government but governance• Not “do” or “ban”

• “Science finds, genius invents, industry applies, man adapts”• Moratoriums proposed by ETC Group and Friends of the Earth

• Wide array of mechanisms• Licensing, restrictions• Liability, indemnification• Intellectual property• Testing• Treaties• Public Understanding of Science (formal, informal)• Public engagement• Public action

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Anticipatory Governance, III

Four capacities (research & practice)1. Foresight

• Because all governance requires some disposition regarding the future

2. Engagement• Because public engagement is crucial

normatively, strategically and even pragmatically

3. Integration• Because scientists know things the rest

of us don’t, and because they don’t know things the rest of us do

4. “Ensemble-ization”• Because none of these work in isolation

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Foresight

• http://cns.asu.edu/nanofutures/– Literature-based– Vetted– Web-

disseminated

• Scenario development workshops

• Product design

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Engagement

• National Citizens’ Technology Forum

• Science Cafes

• NISE Net– Informal Science

Education

– Forums

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Integration

• Socio-Technical Integration Research (STIR)

• Education/Training– PhD+– DC Summer Session– Curricular

• Undergraduate • Graduate

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Another Asilomar?• Foresight: What vision of future did scientists at Asilomar have?

• Determinist (“these things are coming, like it or not”)• Distancing (“we don’t have the ability to do this now so we don’t have to consider this stuff”)

• Engagement: To what extent was the public involved in the discussions?

• Not at all (by invitation GRC)• Contrast: Cambridge city council hearings

• Integration: To what extent were social science and humanistic expertise represented in collaboration with natural science and engineering expertise?

• Attorneys and journalists played crucial role• Ad hoc decision-making processes

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Menu of Potential ActivitiesGenies…bottles…questions…• Capacity Building

– Across sectors• Academic• For Profit• NGO• Governmental

– Both producers and consumers• Institutions and knowledge systems

– US, cross-national, developing• Academic

– Research– Training

• For Profit– Practices/decisions– Responsibility

• NGO Activities– Public understanding/engagement– Convening

• “Ensemble-ization”– Connecting capacities within sectors– Connecting capacities across sectors

More than happy to continue the conversation and get feedback

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