This survey allowed to discuss about the relation between the scientific community (biological engineering students) and the wider society to improve knowledge about Synthetic Biology. We considered engineer's responsibilities, the impact of our work and the understanding by people.
So we decided to make a survey targeting high school first year students studying sciences, as they are the future of the scientific community.
The results underwent a process of clustering, a computed algorithm aiming at roughly distribute them in different groups according to their answers. By the end of the process all the people who had answered similarly were put together in the same group. From that process we sorted out five « clusters » (the groups), each with a different profile of answers.
We note that the ones with the most people have the opposite profiles : 24% (in the cluster_0) of the surveyed knew about synthetic biology, the issues it poses but were still supportive of it, or at least not against it, while 25% (the cluster_3) knew a little less about it but were completely opposed to using its products. After them, 17% of people (cluster_1) have, like in the cluster_3, a little understanding of what synthetic biology is and are against purifying drinking water through its processes but are fine with using it for purifying water that will be used for domestic purposes. The two remaining clusters are similar in regard of how little known synthetic biology is (very little for cluster_4 and not at all for cluster_2). However, as we can see there’s a paradox in the answer of cluster_4, which represents 20% of the panel, as they seem rather acceptant of synthetic biology, and yet would choose water purified with physical or chemical methods over methods involving synthetic biology. Our interpretation is that despite not being against these techniques, these people may still consider the conventional ones more efficient and safe. They are therefore less oriented toward synthetic biology than the people of the cluster_2 (14% of the surveyed) who, despite not knowing anything about synthetic biology, would still be willing to use it without reluctance. We can see it as a proof that many people still don’t have prejudices against this science.
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International survey
