Team:HZAU-China/Humanities

Beyond Artificial Evolution

--An exploration of “other” implications of our project

Overview

In this page we first explain the relationship between synthetic biology and artificial evolution-a term we came to define—and where our project stand in this picture; then, we explored the ethical, aesthetic and semiotic dimensions of our project in relation to synthetic biology itself.

Ethics

In the ethics part, we explored why most ethical concerns of synthetic biology even exist. We employed a top-down thinking style that reduced the reasons into a simple one of fear and doubt, and explored the psychological reasons of the specific fear and doubt that are related to synthetic biology, drawing support from psychoanalytic schools of thought.

Aesthetics

In the aesthetics part, we explored one of the greatest features of our project: the adventurous and intricate design: our Bio Brick is a Rubik's Cube at your command speaking of functionality. Imagine the possibilities of using a Rubik's Cube to build your building!

Semiotics

In the semiotics part, we explored the metaphysical meaning of the word iGEM in the context of Runic alphabet, the Elder Futhark, and discovered that by interpreting one letter differently, it translates smoothly into a description of our project, too.

Preface: Artificial Evolution

What is it, how it relates to synthetic biology and our project

By artificial evolution people normally mean something either very simple, as when peasants select the cabbage seeds for next year's crossbreed, a practice long existed before Darwin's age[1]; or something somehow nebulous, involving complex design of circuits, algorithms, and a lot of computing[2]. The former has secured its place in the genetics textbooks and we shall leave it there; the latter still gives us plenty of spaces for fathoming so that's where we'll start.

Back in 2012, Masami Hagiya and Ibuki Kawamata did a simplification of Channon's approaches to synthetic biology as described in figure 1 below. They generalized the ultimate goal of synthetic biology as "encapsulated complex systems"[3], which is the (theoretical) direction our project is looking at from a faraway distance (in practice).

Figure 1: Where is Synthetic Biology Going?---the "ultimate destination"

Or it could be said:

synthetic biologists are not accelerating evolution on purpose;

but synthetic biology might be.

synthetic biology is artificial evolution in hindsight.

Figure 2: Conceptual similarities and differences of Artificial Evolution and SynBio

However, if we link synthetic biology with artificial evolution like this, some more questions arise. The question of the "wherefrom" of evolution is well disputed between evolutionists and creationists and is not of our current concern, but the question of "whereto" of artificial evolution has seldom been addressed. What do synthetic biologists want to achieve beyond artificial evolution? What do we industrious bricklayers ultimately dream to make after constructing lots and lots of bricks? A building, of course; and the more beautiful, intricate and useful, the better.

Though it seems that we are all content with the bricks we have and can make; after all, a successfully engineered biobrick is already art, feat, and use enough. Comparing with the present that we are gifted with and that its own possibilities has not been exhausted yet, the future is too far for us to seriously talk about it without sounding self-assuming and ridiculous. However, since we agree with what William Gibson said in The Economist:"The future has already arrived, it’s just not evenly distributed yet!" [10] So we guess that, if we cannot be comprehensive, then at least try adopting some spirit of originality when talking about things that are yet to happen.

And we have written three subparts:

Ethics: One Psychological Origin of the Synthetic Biology Ethics

Aesthetics: To Mimic the Intricacies of Nature—Our Design Principles

Semiotics: Metaphysics of iGEM in the Context of Runic Alphabets

Reference

[1] Artificial selection. Accessible at: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_30

[2] Mirrors beyond mirrors, puddles of life. P.Hogeweg. Accessible at: http://theory.bio.uu.nl/BINF/ancientpapers/Hogeweg88.pdf

[3] Towards Co-evolution of Information, Life and Artifcial Life. Masami Hagiya and Ibuki Kawamata. Natural Computing and Beyond. Page41. Accessible at: http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/165/bok%253A978-4-431-54394-7.pdf?auth66=1412817226_902094e22a2ecc80051ea969b8a693ef&ext=.pdf

[4] Powerhouse of Scientists Refute Evolution, Part One. Brian Thomas, M.S. Accessible at: http://www.icr.org/article/8191/

[5] The Meanings of Evolution. Stephen C. Meyer, Michael Newton Keas. Accessible at: http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/Meanings2000.pdf

[6] Evolution. Biology-online. Accessible at: http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Evolution

[7] Artificiality. Wikipedia. Accessible at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificiality

[8] http://syntheticbiology.org/

[9] What is Synthetic Biology. Accessible at: http://parts.igem.org/Help:Synthetic_Biology

[10] "Books of the year 2003". Books & Arts (The Economist). 2003-12-04. Retrieved 2007-08-06

[11] Channon, K., Bromley, E.H.C., Woofson, D.N., Synthetic biology through biomolecular design and engineering. Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 18(4), 491-498(2008)