3/9/12

maradydd: A Biopunk Manifesto

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Meredith L. Patterson (
2010-01-30 21:56:00

maradydd ) wrote,

A Biopunk Manifesto
The following was delivered yesterday at the UCLA Center for Society and Genetics' symposium, "Outlaw Biology? Public Participation in the Age of Big Bio". It is inspired by, and deliberately follows the form of, "A Cypherpunk Manifesto" by Eric Hughes. Scientific literacy is necessary for a functioning society in the modern age. Scientific literacy is not science education. A person educated in science can understand science; a scientifically literate person can *do* science. Scientific literacy empowers everyone who possesses it to be active contributors to their own health care, the quality of their food, water, and air, their very interactions with their own bodies and the complex world around them. Society has made dramatic progress in the last hundred years toward the promotion of education, but at the same time, the prevalence of citizen science has fallen. Who are the twentieth-century equivalents of Benjamin Franklin, Edward Jenner, Marie Curie or Thomas Edison? Perhaps Steve Wozniak, Bill Hewlett, Dave Packard or Linus Torvalds -- but the scope of their work is far narrower than that of the natural philosophers who preceded them. Citizen science has suffered from a troubling decline in diversity, and it is this diversity that biohackers seek to reclaim. We reject the popular perception that science is only done in million-dollar university, government, or corporate labs; we assert that the right of freedom of inquiry, to do research and pursue understanding under one's own direction, is as fundamental a right as that of free speech or freedom of religion. We have no quarrel with Big Science; we merely recall that Small Science has always been just as critical to the development of the body of human knowledge, and we refuse to see it extinguished. Research requires tools, and free inquiry requires that access to tools be unfettered. As engineers, we are developing lowcost laboratory equipment and off-the-shelf protocols that are accessible to the average citizen. As political actors, we support open journals, open collaboration, and free access to publicly-funded research, and we oppose laws that would criminalize the possession of research equipment or the private pursuit of inquiry. Perhaps it seems strange that scientists and engineers would seek to involve themselves in the political world -- but biohackers have, by necessity, committed themselves to doing so. The lawmakers who wish to curtail individual freedom of inquiry do so out of ignorance and its evil twin, fear -- the natural prey and the natural predator of scientific investigation, respectively. If we can prevail against the former, we will dispel the latter. As biohackers it is our responsibility to act as emissaries of science, creating new scientists out of everyone we meet. We must communicate not only the value of our research, but the value of our methodology and motivation, if we are to drive ignorance and fear back into the darkness once and for all. We the biopunks are dedicated to putting the tools of scientific investigation into the hands of anyone who wants them. We are building an infrastructure of methodology, of communication, of automation, and of publicly available knowledge. Biopunks experiment. We have questions, and we don't see the point in waiting around for someone else to answer them. Armed with curiosity and the scientific method, we formulate and test hypotheses in order to find answers to the questions that keep us awake at night. We publish our protocols and equipment designs, and share our bench experience, so that our fellow biopunks may learn from and expand on our methods, as well as reproducing one another's experiments to confirm validity. To paraphrase Eric Hughes, "Our work is free for all to use, worldwide. We don't much care if you don't approve of our research topics." We are building on the work of the Cypherpunks who came before us to ensure that a widely dispersed research community cannot be shut down. Biopunks deplore restrictions on independent research, for the right to arrive independently at an understanding of the world around oneself is a fundamental human right. Curiosity knows no ethnic, gender, age, or socioeconomic boundaries, but the
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maradydd: A Biopunk Manifesto

opportunity to satisfy that curiosity all too often turns on economic opportunity, and we aim to break down that barrier. A thirteen-year-old kid in South Central Los Angeles has just as much of a right to investigate the world as does a university professor. If thermocyclers are too expensive to give one to every interested person, then we'll design cheaper ones and teach people how to build them. Biopunks take responsibility for their research. We keep in mind that our subjects of interest are living organisms worthy of respect and good treatment, and we are acutely aware that our research has the potential to affect those around us. But we reject outright the admonishments of the precautionary principle, which is nothing more than a paternalistic attempt to silence researchers by inspiring fear of the unknown. When we work, it is with the betterment of the community in mind -- and that includes our community, your community, and the communities of people that we may never meet. We welcome your questions, and we desire nothing more than to empower you to discover the answers to them yourselves. The biopunks are actively engaged in making the world a place that everyone can understand. Come, let us research together.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Tags: biohacking

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14 comments

siliconshaman January 31 2010, 16:09:15 UTC

This! Damn this age of restrictions and corporate ownership of damn near everything!
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rialian January 31 2010, 17:15:37 UTC

===Other than the comment about the precautionary principle, I like this a lot. ===I think that the principle is actually a good one, when properly applied. One should not release the results of experimentation, due to very definite negative effects that can run very much out of control. While I trust the motivations of biohackers far more than corporations, I would like both to be acting under the understanding that the systems they are exploring should not be forced onto all others just because "we know better than you". ===(I really dislike the turn that GMO "science" has taken. Too early a release into the wild of the results of the technology, when it really should have stayed in the various labs for a fair bit longer. I trust the biohackers more, partially because they will have folks looking at their work and their critiques of things will be far more open...I think the safety net will be MUCH more effective, and will hopefully rein in the corporate science idiocies by real observation and testing.)
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songblaze February 1 2010, 19:27:48 UTC

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So how did they react to your talk?

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Anonymous February 3 2010, 08:53:05 UTC

love this quote from your post Scientific literacy is necessary for a functioning society in the modern age. Scientific literacy is not science education. A person educated in science can understand science; a scientifically literate person can *do* science. <----- am quoting it on http://transitlab.org
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Anonymous February 10 2010, 15:16:16 UTC

Just too cool Fantasic - keep up the good work

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Anonymous March 3 2010, 05:39:45 UTC

Passing on the word Hey Meredith, I'm helping to found a biohacking community here in Baltimore, MD. I've linked to your article, within our blogspace. Come check us out, and feel free to give us some pointers. http://www.genoblasts.com http://www.bio-more.us I wonder whether you'd be up for a small interview to accompany your piece? 20 questions or something similar... What do ya think
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mejme March 25 2010, 01:50:51 UTC

yep yes i am a bio outlaw rebel yell, billy idle

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badgerbag September 4 2010, 02:29:07 UTC

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I just watched the video of this and loved it. Thanks!

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Anonymous December 20 2010, 07:53:00 UTC

bornoutofbinary.blogspot.com We at Anti-E support you.

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Anonymous April 13 2011, 20:09:35 UTC

I've become aware of this movement through the information on the Biopunk article on Nature's April 6 2011 issue. As a post-doc and admin of an online science forum I support the efforts to bring knowledge to everyone. Especially enthusiasm to do science and understanding of the scientific method among general population need to improved. One concern I have is safety. Most of those rules and regulations we have in the labs is to prevent accidental exposure of public to biological reagents. For example a bacterium transformed with antibiotic resistance genes can easily spread into the food chain. As long as people who do the experiments know the risks and take precautions to prevent science is science wherever it's made.
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Anonymous June 1 2011, 17:41:02 UTC

Providing tools Let's put the tools in the hands of the people- but only on a voluntary, non-government basis. The tools should NOT be provided for by government, nor should people be taxed or forced to pay for said tools. They should be provided by voluntary donations and perhaps a use fee.
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SonyaBuyting March 8 2012, 13:49:19 UTC

Hi Meredith, I'm a science journalist doing a piece on biohacking for Canada's national broadcaster, CBC Radio's show Spark, which is about tech, trends, and ideas. I'd love to talk to you. Can we chat? You can reach me at Sonya (at) sonyabuyting (dot com). I hope to speak with you soon! Cheers! Sonya
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