The Creation of Life in Cultural Context: From Spontaneous Generation to Synthetic Biology

Schummer, Joachim

doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262012621.003.0008

Cited by 6 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 16 publications

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“…A much more detailed presentation with background information and hundreds of references, which are here omitted for space reasons, is Schummer 2011, albeit not yet translated into English. More details on Section 2 can be found in Schummer 2003Schummer , 2006Schummer , 2009. There are numerous anthologies on the societal and ethical aspects of synthetic biology, from earlier ones such as Bedau & Parke 2009to Boldt 2016, Hagen et al 2016.…”

Section: Further Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Are You Playing God?’: Synthetic Biology and the Chemical Ambition to Create Artificial Life

Schummer¹

2021

Ethics of Chemistry

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Throughout history chemists have faced the accusation of 'playing God' or similar devilish associations, overshadowing all moral judgments of chemistry. The paper provides an ethical analysis of the accusation with focus on Craig Venter's 2010 announcement of having produced the 'first selfreplicating cell'. Against the deeper historical background of the ambitious projects that came to be known as 'synthetic biology', I describe Venter's actual research and its international media reception. Then I analyze both the ethical and theological implications of creating living beings in the laboratory. In conclusion I argue that the Venter case, like many others cases from chemistry before, is a case of unfortunate science-public interaction that mislead both ethics and science.

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