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The Construction of Imaginaries of the

Public as a Threat to Synthetic Biology
a

Claire Marris
a

Department of Social Science, Health & Medicine, King's College

London, London, WC2R 2LS, UK
Published online: 22 Dec 2014.

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To cite this article: Claire Marris (2015) The Construction of Imaginaries of the Public as a Threat
to Synthetic Biology, Science as Culture, 24:1, 83-98, DOI: 10.1080/09505431.2014.986320
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Science as Culture, 2015

Vol. 24, No. 1, 8398, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09505431.2014.986320

The Construction of Imaginaries of the

Public as a Threat to Synthetic Biology
CLAIRE MARRIS

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Department of Social Science, Health & Medicine, Kings College London, London, WC2R 2LS,
UK

K EY W ORDS :
biology

public perceptions of risk, public attitudes to science, ELSI, synthetic

Introduction
Scientific institutions and innovation-focused government bodies have identified
public attitudes to synthetic biology as an obstruction to the field. This view is
based on a perception that the public is (or will likely become) fearful of synthetic
biology and that a public scare would impede development of the field. Fear of the
publics fear of synthetic biology, which I characterise as synbiophobia-phobia,
has been the driving force behind the promotion of public engagement and other
activities to address ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI). These activities
have been problematic in two ways. Firstly, they are based on the discredited
deficit-model understanding of public responses to science, in which negative
public attitudes towards science are thought to result from a lack of scientific knowledge. Secondly, they have taken for granted sociotechnical expectations put forward
by scientific institutions. These promises of the field, and the tacit normative commitments embedded within them, have not been opened up to public appraisal.
In these ways, synthetic biology exemplifies many phenomena described by
Welsh and Wynne (2013). This article analyses the ontological stakes in the
work conducted by scientific institutions to conjure up imaginaries of publics
with respect to synthetic biology. As synthetic biology emerges as a field of
hope under threat from publics, how have science, publics and the relations
between them become defined?

Correspondence Address: Department of Social Science, Health & Medicine, Kings College London, Strand,
London WC2R 2LS, UK. Email: claire.marris@kcl.ac.uk
# 2014 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://
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C. Marris

The Public as an Obstruction to Public Benefit

Synthetic biology has been portrayed as an emerging field with great potential. For
example, the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
described it in 2009 as a fast developing area of transformative science offering
unique opportunities to deliver significant benefits in areas such as therapeutics,
environmental biosensors and potentially novel methods to produce food, drugs,
chemicals or energy (2009, p. 47). The same year, a report by the Royal
Academy of Engineering (RAEng) stated that:

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Synthetic biology is destined to become of critical importance to building the

nations wealth. It has the potential to transform world industry in areas such
as energy, health and the environment; to produce a new era of wealth
generation; and create large numbers of new jobs. (RAEng, 2009, p. 9)
Based on such sociotechnical expectations, synthetic biology had been branded by
the UK Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) as one of the Eight
Great Technologies for Great Britain that deserve government support in order to
accelerate commercialisation (BIS, 2013). In a speech announcing this decision,
Chancellor George Osbourne stated that they say that synthetic biology will
heal us, heat [us] and feed us (Osbourne, 2012). This concise embodiment of synthetic biologys potential has since become a tagline for the field and has transformed into a firm promise. For example, an editorial in a special issue of
Nature Reviews Microbiology devoted to synthetic biology began: Synthetic
biology has been predicted to heal us, feed us and fuel us (Anonymous, 2014,
emphasis added).
This grand destiny for synthetic biology is, however, perceived to be in danger
of being subverted by public perceptions and fears, identified as the fields main
threat in the EPSRCs SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and
Threats) analysis:
Public perceptions and fears of synthetic biology may obstruct research in
this field, in a similar fashion to GM. This has been recognised by all stakeholders and public engagement and dialogue activities are in the process of
being developed. (EPSRC, 2009, p. 46)
These two representations of the fieldits potential to deliver grand benefits to
society and its susceptibility to fearful publicshave been constructed concomitantly. Thus, somewhat incongruously, scientific institutions see public attitudes
as a major obstacle to the field that needs to be surmounted in order to deliver its
public benefit. This is illustrated by this quote from the leading synthetic biology
research centre in the USA:

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85

The purpose of the workshop is to provide science practitioners with the

skills and confidence needed to communicate with general audiences
about the importance and potential of engineering biology. The Wilson
Center, the OECD and others have stated that synthetic biology is still in
uncharted waters of public opinion, but that public attitudes about this
field could have a serious dampening effect on our ability to engineer
biology for public benefit. (Synberc, 2014)

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The earlier controversy over genetically modified (GM) crops is routinely cited
as an important precedent, and in this context, campaigning NGOs are perceived
as a major threat. This view is illustrated by Volker ter Meulen, Chair of a
working group on synthetic biology for the IAP (the global network of science
academies):
Synthetic biology is [. . .] controversial, and that is jeopardizing its promise.
Environmental groups argue that it poses risks to health and the environment
and have called for a global moratorium. We have been here before:
exaggerated fears and uncritical acceptance of claims of the risks of
genetic modification led to excessively cautious regulation and a block on
innovation [. . .] given the precedent of how the issue of genetically
modified crops were handled, many scientists are worried that some
policy-makers will take unsubstantiated concerns of environmental groups
at face value and impose cumbersome and unnecessary rules. (Meulen,
2014)
I have routinely encountered such views among scientific and innovation-focused
government institutions, during a five-year immersion in the field of synthetic
biology. Communication and public engagement initiatives are called upon to
ensure that publics understand the potential of synthetic biology to contribute to
societal benefits and that potential risks are not overblown. There is no recognition
that the definition of societal benefits, and the way in which synthetic biology will
contribute to them, might need to be opened up to deliberation. Supporters of
synthetic biology advocate communication and dialogue, but not debate where
people could disagree about what is at stake.

Synthetic Biologys ELSI-work

Interconnected Layers of Activities and Actors
Synthetic biology, in its current incarnation (Campos, 2009), is only about 10
years old but has already been subjected to a great deal of scrutiny in scientific
and policy arenas. This has involved interconnected activities including: producing institutional reports on ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI); conducting

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opinion polls and public dialogues; enrolling social scientists into research centres
and projects; and constituting or consulting para-governmental advisory groups. I
refer to these collectively as ELSI-work. Key players include academies of
science and engineering, innovation-focused governmental and inter-governmental bodies (BIS, European Commission and OECD), research funders, pollsters,
think-tanks and bioethics committees.
This article focuses on ELSI-work in the UK, where the phenomena described
have been particularly evident. Some US initiatives are also discussed because
their influence reaches out across the Atlantic. In addition, the iGEM competition
plays an important role in the cosmopolitanisation of synthetic biology, through
the social synthesis of aligning national R&D resources and actors with the
global scientific community (Zhang, 2011). Competing undergraduate student
teams are expected to conduct ELSI-work, so this is another arena where imaginaries of publics are conjured up, and assumptions about the threat posed are shared
and consolidated. This is apparent, for example, in one of last years projects,
entitled gaining acceptance by overcoming fears (iGEM2014 Freiburgh team,
2014).
Some social scientists working in the field of synthetic biology seek to distinguish their work from the dominant ELSI-framing described in this article
(Balmer et al., 2012; Rabinow and Bennett, 2012). Some excellent research is
emerging from these scholars (e.g. Sara Aguiton, Andrew Balmer, Kate Bulpin,
Jane Calvert, Luis Campos, Caitlin Cockerton, Emma Frow, Susan MolyneuxHodgson and Sara Tocchetti), but this has had little effect on the way in which
ELSI-work, including the enrolment of social scientists, is understood by scientific
and innovation-focused governmental institutions.
Institutional Reports
The structure of institutional reports on synthetic biology tends to follow a similar
structure. They first assert the promise of the field, then introduce technical aspects
before turning to a fairly standard list of issues: biosecurity (the notion that
people could misuse synthetic biology to create weapons), biosafety (potential
harms caused by the intended or unintended release of organisms from laboratories and factories); and the creation of artificial life forms (with these concerns
typically qualified as moral, ethical or philosophical). Intellectual property is
also sometimes mentioned as a public concern with respect to the creation of monopolies, but more often with respect to the potential for patents to limit the development of the field.
The ELSI sections of these reports typically conclude with the need to identify
and address societal implications. The involvement of social scientists, ethicists
and philosophers, are called upon for this endeavour, alongside early public dialogue (e.g. Royal Academy of Engineering, 2009, p. 9). This structure draws boundaries between the conduct of research and innovation, on the one hand, and

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downstream social implications, on the other, and implies that the role of ethics,
social scientists, and public engagement is relevant only to the latter. Moreover,
the matter-of-fact tone used to state the promises of the field excludes them from
social appraisal and denies the normative commitments embedded within them.

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US Opinion Polls
In institutional reports, public concerns are defined by experts (including social
scientist and ethicists). Two other mechanisms have been used to elicit public
opinions more directly: opinion polls and focus groups. In the USA, the Wilson
Center commissioned Hart Research Associates to conduct a survey that was
repeated in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2013. The survey design and interpretation of
the results reveal a preoccupation with the supposed role of scientific information
in shaping public opinion.
Thus, particular attention is paid to comparing the initial unaided view and
the informed view of the risks and benefits of synthetic biology, collected
before and after providing respondents with a short definition of the field and
examples of potential applications, risks and benefits (see Figure 1). The

Figure 1. An eternally surprising result from surveys on public attitudes to science: more scientific
information does not simplistically lead to more positive attitudes. Source: Hart Research Associates
(2013).

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expectation is that the informed view will be more positive. Providing the
public with knowledge of the science is seen as being important now before
it is framed by misimpressions, misinformation, or scepticism (Hart Research
Associates, 2008, p. 2).
This belief endures even though decades of opinion polls have systematically
failed to demonstrate a linear correlation between scientific knowledge and
public attitudes, and reveal instead ambiguous relationships between these dimensions (e.g. Evans and Durant, 1995). The Hart Research Associates survey further
confirmed these results: fewer respondents were prepared to say that they had no
opinion when they were asked to appraise the risks and benefits of synthetic
biology a second time, and the sample shifted slightly towards more negative
appraisals. Similar results have been systematically reproduced in surveys on
public attitudes to science, but appear to be perpetually surprising among scientific
and governmental institutions. When this result was repeated, and became stronger, in the third wave of the Hart Associates survey, the informed views were relabelled post-information views.
The survey also asked respondents whether they believe synthetic biology
should move forward, but more research must be done to study its possible
effects on humans and the environment or A ban should be placed on synthetic
biology research until we better understand its implications and risks. The question does not allow for ambiguity: respondents are expected to either support or
oppose the field. But as the 2013 report explains, a majority of adults support continuing synthetic biology research, 61% said move forward and 34% said ban,
despite the fact that there had expressed concerns in their previous answers (Hart
Research Associates, 2013, p. 2). This result is interpreted as being surprising or
inconsistent: How can respondents express concerns and still support the field?
Yet qualitative research has routinely revealed such ambivalence and explained
how it can be interpreted as well-informed and rational (Marks, 2009). Overall, the
Hart Research Associates survey defines public concerns according to the expectations of scientific institutions and then seeks to measure those concerns. It also
predefines the kind of information that is supposed to be most relevant for people
to form an evidence-based opinion without allowing publics to voice concerns that
might be framed differently or to consider other kinds of information.
UK Dialogue
In the UK, scientific institutions avoided using opinion polls, in part because the
framing problems discussed above have been acknowledged to some extent.
Instead a Dialogue, commissioned by the Biotechnology and Biological
Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and EPSRC, was conducted in 2010 by
the market research company TNS-BMRB. Focus groups were conducted with
129 people recruited to reflect a wide cross-section of the public. These were
reconvened three times, for a total of 14 hours, and the discussions were structured

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using insights from interviews with stakeholders. Compared to surveys, the qualitative methods used provide participants with more opportunity to challenge framings imposed by researchers, and the in-depth analysis in the report produced by
TNS-BMRB revealed the same kinds of ambivalent and nuanced responses to
science typically found through such research (Bhattachary et al., 2010).
Interactive voting sessions were, however, also conducted to track the publics
opinions over the day (TNS-BMRB, 2010, p. 9). Respondents were asked to say
whether different categories of applications (medical, energy, bioremediation and
food/crop) were morally acceptable, a risk to the environment, useful for
society, and whether these applications should be encouraged or are not how
we should approach the problem. The same questions were asked at the beginning
and end of the day, and participants could view the results instantly on a screen.
This gave both the members of the public and the scientific experts present the
impression that quantitatively measuring responses to these questions, and
identifying any shift in opinions after deliberation, was a key feature of the
exercise.
This interpretation was further consolidated when histograms presenting the
results of these votes were included in the Dialogue report. Thus, among scientific
and governmental institutions, the Dialogue was largely understood as an exercise
to survey public attitudes, an impression also conveyed by the headline of the
press release announcing the results: A major new public dialogue activity on
the publics views and attitudes on synthetic biology has revealed that most
people are supportive of the research but with conditions on how and why it is conducted (BBSRC, 2010).
Results from the Dialogue were reported as representing conditional support,
but the conditionality expressed by members of the public was misinterpreted
as a desire for more robust risk regulation and for consideration of wider
implications, understood as downstream moral and ethical issues, separate
from scientific aspects. Other kinds of public concerns revealed by the Dialogue
were less well apprehended. These were well summarised in Bhattachary
et al.s report as five central questions that emerged from the focus group
discussions: What is the purpose? Why do you want to do it? What are you
going to gain from it? What else is it going to do? How do you know you
are right? Like previous research on public responses to emerging technologies, these questions reveal that public concerns tend to focus on the
process of research, rather than the products: Who sets the agenda? How?
On what basis?
These results have, however, been construed as a request for individual scientists to demonstrate their laudable and non-profit-seeking intentions, and this has
led to further pressure for researchers to imagine and highlight potential applications with seemingly obvious grand societal benefits when communicating
with their funders or the public. This interpretation of the Dialogue results has

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erased concerns expressed by participants about a lack of transparency and

accountability in research processes.

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Omnipresent Disembodied Publics

Publics are simultaneously omnipresent and absent in discussions about synthetic
biology. They are omnipresent as disembodied, imagined, publics but absent as
actual persons or organisations. Lay people or representatives of social movements have been excluded from inner circles of deliberation such as, for
example, the UK Synthetic Biology Leadership Council (SBLC) or the US
Forum on synthetic biology. Social scientists (such as myself) have been
invited to sit on these committees and are sometimes referred to as representing
the public in these arenas, but this is an identity that most of us would reject
(Calvert and Martin, 2009). When publics have been present, it has usually
been as outsiders, invited in for special occasions. For example, representatives
from campaigning NGOs are sometimes invited to take part in debates at scientific
meetings or public events; and invited publics were the core constituency for the
UK Dialogue.
The disembodied public that is conjured up during discussions among scientific
and governmental elites is typically conceived of either as an uncommitted
member of the public who has no particular interest in the field or as overcommitted activists who are portrayed as being intent on shutting down the
field. When referring to the first category, the public (usually in the singular) is
represented as a passive (unmobilised) and malleable entity, easily swayed by
information. It is assumed that sensationalist and unscientific information
from campaigning groups or the mass media will produce negative attitudes,
and that adequate scientific information will produce positive attitudes. Mobilised
publics, referred to as activists, NGOs or environmental groups are, on the
other hand, portrayed as having entrenched views, and as terrifically, and terrifyingly, active. They are portrayed as being able to easily influence media representations of synthetic biology, and thus also the attitudes of the unmobilised public.
Both committed and uncommitted publics are perceived to be irrationally
fearful of GM techniques per se, and this is assumed to be based on an a preoccupation with, and misunderstanding of, naturalness (e.g. they do not realise that
we have been manipulating nature since ancient times) and a lack of knowledge
of the molecular basis of genetics (e.g. they do not even know that ordinary tomatoes contain genes). Both categories of publics are perceived to be made up of
individuals who are concerned mostly about risks and benefits, defined narrowly
as direct impacts on their own health or wealth from their consumption of products
produced using genetic technologies. When members of either group veers off to
talk about Monsanto and all that, they are represented as being off subject and
politically motivated. In this way, perceptions about the public become self-

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91

Figure 2. When Evolva, a company that says it is using synthetic biology to produce vanillin, faced
public controversy, it published a video that conjured up their imagined public. Source: Eve
explains fermentation, video published by Evolva on 28/08/2014. Available at http://youtube/
y96w21HkaHQ.

fulfilling: only concerns about the unnaturalness or narrowly defined risks of GM

technologies are acknowledged as relevant. Other concerns are batted away.
In one case, supporters of synthetic biology have literally made up their
imagined public. When controversy about vanillin produced by Evolva hit the
headlines in Spring 2014, the firm produced a video portraying Joy, a woman
who is initially suspicious of tweaking natural yeast yeast used to produce vanillin (see Figure 2). Over the course of the three-minute video, a female scientist
(Eve) explains to Joy that people have been doing that to yeast for millennia
and argues that Eolvas product is more sustainable than vanillin produced from
petrochemicals or vanilla extracted from orchid flowers. By the end, Joy is not
entirely convinced but is willing to keep an open mind. Scientists dream of
having such a conversation with members of the publicas they are imagined to
be.
Good Versus Bad NGOs
Analysing the GM crops debate in 2001, Tait categorised motivations of stakeholders along two dimensions: interest-based and value-based (Tait, 2001).
These dimensions were initially used to analyse the positions of a range of stakeholders including companies, scientists, farmers, consumer groups and environmental groups, but Tait and others have more recently applied these ideas mostly
to organisations that campaign against particular technological developments.
For example in 2012, Tait argued that the activities of an NGO coalition that had

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produced Principles for the Oversight of Synthetic Biology were rooted in an

ideologically based framing of the technology as inherently hazardous, based on
negative conjectures with little relationship to actual evidence (Tait, 2012, p. 579).
Tait also presented this characterisation of critical stakeholder engagement to
an audience of potential applicants for funding from the UK Technology Strategy Board to help advance synthetic biology applications closer to commercialisation. In the related Powerpoint slide, she represented uncommitted
members of the publics as the squeezed middle between interest-based and ideologically based organisations (Tait, 2013, slide 7). Tait argues that it is relatively
easy to deal with interest-based conflicts (by providing information, compensation and negotiation), but much harder to deal with those based on values
and ethics.
Such views are widespread. The fact that Tait was appointed to serve as the only
social scientist on the SBLC, as well as Chair of the SBLCs Sub-group on
Governance indicates that her views are well-aligned with powerful governmental
and scientific institutions. Tait was also commissioned to draft a report on
synthetic biology for the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC), which
recommended that stakeholder engagement needs to ensure that equal prominence is given to groups with interests in the development of the technology
for example patient groups in drug development in addition to groups motivated
by shared values (IRGC, 2010, p. 40).
These perceptions about campaigning NGOs have led to a search for organisations that could be expected to be less extreme and that we can talk to. In
this context, patient groups are considered good interest-based NGOs, because
they are expected to support drug development and reduced regulatory burdens
for new medical treatments, on the basis that they can see direct benefits to themselves or individuals close to them. In this context, a frequently conjured up scientific imaginary of the public is the patient who is terminally ill (usually with
cancer) and is therefore so desperate that they are prepared to try anything.
Yet empirical research with cancer patient advocacy groups reveals a diversity
of approaches to drug development, regulation and the role of the pharmaceutical
industry. In particular, there are differences in how advocates attempt to balance
the needs of individual cancer patients seeking access to experimental or new drug
therapies with the needs of society (and future cancer patients) for robust evidence
of a drugs risks and benefits (Davis, 2014). The Genetic Alliance is at one end of
this spectrum and is the only campaigning NGO on the SBLCs Sub-group on
Governance.
In one conversation that I witnessed, Oxfam was identified as a potentially good
NGO to engage with, because it was presumed that it would be supportive of synthetic biologys project to produce the antimalarial compound artemisinin more
cheaply, by producing it in engineered yeast rather than extracting it from
plants. In another, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) was identified because it
was expected to be sensitive to the argument that synthetic biology will lead to

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more environmentally sustainable products. These discussions fail to recognise

that organisations such as Oxfam or WWF have more sophisticated analyses of
the causes of poverty, ill-health and degraded environments than those that typically pervade scientific institutions. They are therefore unlikely to unquestionably
support synthetic biology applications presented as technological fixes for problems involving complex, inter-related social, economic and environmental
factors.
For example, synthetic biologys Artemisinin Project has been a poster child for
the field and is promoted as being able to prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths
that occur every year from malaria in developing countries (Marris, 2013). The
explicit aim of the project is to produce cheaper artemisinin-based combination
therapies, but Oxfam has already argued that efforts to provide easier access to
these drugs, without adequate diagnosis and supervision, will fail to bring
increased health benefitsand is a dangerous distraction from better strategies
such as investing in community health (Oxfam, 2012).
The distinction between value-based or interest-based NGOs does not
acknowledge the tacit, normative commitments embedded within the discourse
and behaviour of scientific institutions which are necessarily involved in public
responses to dominant science agendas, as argued by Welsh and Wynne (2013,
p. 542). Thus, organisations that campaign against current developments in synthetic biology are dismissed as anti-capitalists who oppose any profit-making
endeavour. These representations fail to recognise that sceptical responses from
publicsboth mobilised and unmobilisedare often reactions to the absence
of any mention of commercial purposes in public communication. Thus, public
responses are misinterpreted as a negative response to profit-making per se,
rather than to this lack of transparency. This misunderstanding of public responses
perpetuates a vicious circle whereby public communication actively promotes
grand societal promises, while minimising profit motives, thus generating more
public alienation (Wynne, 2001).
Persistence of Public Acceptability as the Identified Problem
The persistence of a particular understanding of, and obsession with, public
acceptability as a major obstacle for synthetic biology became apparent during
work I conducted with Jane Calvert as a member of the group that produced the
UK Synthetic Biology Roadmap. At first we were asked to work on a chapter
entitled Acceptability. We successfully proposed to shift the focus and the
title of this chapter to Responsible Research and Innovation. In line with our
approach, the report ended up saying:
Although addressing health, environmental and security risks is important,
this will not in itself lead to broad public acceptability unless innovation
in synthetic biology is demonstrably directed towards:

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new products, processes and services that can bring clear public benefits
including, but not limited to, employment, improved quality of life and
economic growth
solutions to compelling problems that are more effective, safer and/or
cheaper than existing (or alternative) solutions. (UK Synthetic Biology
Roadmap Coordination Group, 2012, p. 19)
However, in the final layout of the report, a prominent Public acceptability subheading was inserted on this page. In the Executive Summary, the theme of this
chapter was summarised as the need for awareness, training and adherence to
regulatory frameworks. And in the short version of the recommendations, the
only mention of responsibility was with respect to the need to Invest to accelerate technology responsibly to market.
In these ways, our contribution was essentially erased. I have on several
occasions heard the report represented as having concluded that public acceptability is a key obstacle for the delivery of the promise of synthetic biology and that
this is the reason why it is necessary to address ethical and societal issues, conduct
public engagement and/or implement responsible innovation. This understanding of what is at stake endures, despite the fact that the text that follows the
Public acceptability subheading explicitly sought to challenge it.
Conclusions
Analysing debates in the field of nanotechnology in the period 200005, Rip
described how the GM case contributed to a nanophobia-phobiathe phobia
that there is a public phobia:
. . . . there is not only an exaggerated interpretation of public concernsseen
as an indication of fear, even phobia of the new technology. Such concerns
and fears are also projected onto the public, even when there are no grounds.
In other words, a folk theory about public reactions resurfaces again and
againeven though the limited data available indicate appreciation of the
new nano-ventures rather than concern. Thus, the concern of nanoscientists
and technologists about public concerns (painted as a phobia about nano)
drives their views, rather than actual data about public views. (Rip, 2006,
p. 358)
Evidence presented in this article reveals that synthetic biologists and policy
actors who support them exhibit a similar fear of public fear. This synbiophobia-phobia has been the driving force behind ELSI-work and has influenced its
conduct. Avoiding a repeat of what happened with GM is routinely mentioned
as a key objective, and during these discussions, the shared assumption is that controversy is necessarily a bad thing.

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Compared to GM crops, scientific and governmental institutions have employed

strategies to deal with public concerns earlier in the development of the field of
synthetic biology. A constellation of national and international organisations
have been involved in interconnected layers of ELSI-work, but these have all
incorporated similar scientific imaginaries of the public. The continual reaffirmation of misunderstandings about public responses across activities in different
arenas further contributes to their crystallisation. As a result, they remain remarkably impervious to contrary empirical evidence. Despite an often-genuine desire
to learn lessons from past experiences, fundamental misunderstandings about
the nature of public concerns endure. Public concerns are to be surveyed (or
more accurately surveilled) and their concerns are to be overcome rather than
respected and responded to.
The discourse about the public (still often referred to in the singular) that dominates the field of synthetic biology discussions reflects the same underlying epistemic and cultural framing that has pervaded controversies around GM crops and
foods since the 1990s. The discredited deficit-model is still influential. According to this model, public misgivings about science or its applications are assumed
to stem from a lack of scientific knowledge (Marks, 2009). Members of the public
are seen as empty vessels, to be filled with understanding of science to avoid
emotional reactions running riot (Rip, 2006, p. 357). Science communication is
called upon to placate irrational and unwarranted public fears (Gregory and
Miller, 1998). Public engagement is viewed as a process of elicitation, a mechanism for extracting relevant opinions and incorporating them into the process of
government (Lezaun and Soneryd, 2007). Public responses are considered to
be emotional, dependent, epistemically empty, gullible to manipulation rather
than questions about our scientific-institutional culture and its assumptions
(Wynne, 2006). With respect to GM organisms, the myths about public attitudes
that I identified with colleagues in the 1990s endure (Marris, 1999; Marris et al.,
2001). In 1992, Brian Wynne characterised these beliefs about public attitudes to
science as misunderstood misunderstandings (Wynne, 1992). Twenty years on,
and despite substantial empirical research that discredits those views, public
responses to science are still widely misunderstood as misunderstandings about
scientific knowledge.
Spokespersons for scientific institutions regularly complain that policy-makers
take unsubstantiated concerns of environmental groups at face value, as ter
Meulen put it. Yet they, and actors conducting ELSI-work, have taken unsubstantiated technological promises at face value. Grandiose claims are made about the
ineluctable potential for synthetic biology to help tackle global health and environmental problems, and to contribute to the bioeconomy. These matter-of-fact statements about the hopes of the field then serve as the basis for speculative ethics
(Nordmann, 2007) and for the information provided to participants in opinion
polls and public dialogues. They are not presented as issues that need to be
explored by social scientists or subjected to public dialogue.

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As a result, synthetic biologys ELSI-work has neglected key questions: Is

accelerating commercialisation necessarily a contribution to the public good?
Under what conditions can the desired anticipated benefits be realised? How do
solutions provided by synthetic biology compare to alternatives, including alternatives that involve no cutting-edge science? Who has defined the problems that
need tackling, and how? By excluding such questions, synthetic biologys
ELSI-work has not acknowledged the normative social commitments, meanings
and trajectories embedded in [the] scientisation of politics (Welsh and Wynne,
2013, p. 543), yet these aspects are crucial to the concerns of both mobilised
and unmobilised publics.
The synthetic biology community has been more proactive in its engagement with
diverse communities than other fields and should be commended for this. But synthetic biologys engagement with publics has been rooted in synbiophobia-phobia,
thus perpetuating a belief system that closes down, rather than opens up, the politics
of knowledge and power in technology choice (Stirling, 2012). Instead of
reconfiguring the terrain for inclusive participation, it has ploughed deeper
furrows in already entrenched modes of managing controversy. The situation is
already similar to GM as regards the behaviour of campaigning NGOs, scientific
organisations and innovation-focused state bodies alike. Synthetic biologys
ELSI-work has taken place early on, before commercialisation, but rather than
helping to avoid a polarised controversy, this effort has laid the battleground for conflict among opposing groups when products begin to reach the market.

Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research
Council under grants EP/G036004/1 and EP/J02175X/1.

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