Public Attitudes and Philosophical Perspectives on the Use of Biotechnology to Address Forest Health Evelyn Brister, Associate Professor of Philosophy Rochester Institute of Technology
Biotech and Forest Health 1. Public Attitudes and Public Knowledge about Biotechnology 2. Philosophical Perspectives 3. Framing an Inquiry: Starting Points and Useful Distinctions
Public Views on Biotech Who is the public, what does the public know, and what does the public value? Little research on use of biotech in forests (but see Hajjar and Kozak 2015, Thompson and Strauss 2000) About half of the American public has no particularly strong opinion on GM foods (Pew Research Center 2016). GM foods are ubiquitous in the US. Attitudes toward GM foods do not track political party, education, income, or geography (Pew RC 2016). The segment of the public that does have a strong opinion typically a negative one is made up of people who have a philosophy of food.
Public Views on Biotech When it comes to biotech and related emerging technologies, studies show that the public has relatively low trust in scientists (Akin et al. 2017). Some studies infer that lack of scientific literacy is a problem. Others indicate that lack of trust tracks values rather than scientific literacy (Lucht 2015). In the context of biotech and forest health: A) The implications of science require interpretation in the light of values they are not obvious or settled. B) The knowledge required to make these judgments is very detailed and not at the level of general scientific literacy.
Values and Biotech Values related to human interests: Economics and ownership Cultural & aesthetic values Health & environmental risks Individual choice and public input
Values and Biotech Values related to non-human interests: Ecological stability Genetic integrity Wildness Biodiversity and regional character (non-homogeneity) Human relationship to nature/ responsibility for harm Aesthetics of the natural world
Values and Biotech Values are interpreted and are embedded in a context. The value of a technology is derived both from what it can do and what can otherwise be done: the benefits and risks of use, the benefits and risks of non-use, and the benefits and risks of alternatives. The potential of biotech for conservation is not well-known to the public. The challenges to forest health are also not widely known. How do the uses of biotech for forest health take account of the values and concerns that the public holds?
Values and Forest Health Framing questions: Which forests and what is their history? How managed? For what goals? What are the threats to forest health? How many and how serious? Are they human-caused? What is at stake? Which biotechnologies? (GM trees, GM pests, gene drives, gene editing) In what social and legal context? (commercial vs. public; with what public or non-profit support)
Values and Forest Health Possible uses of biotech to preserve forest health challenge the established framing of the GM crops debate and require rethinking how these technologies relate to ethics and values. They: - are non-commercial and outside the food system - are intended for wild release - modify relatively slow-growing species (trees), some of them relatively immobile, while responding to short-term and long-term threats - aim to repair human-linked harms to forest health - may require reforestation efforts - relate to different alternative futures than in the GM crop debate (a hazard in not acting) - involve aesthetic as well as ethical and social values
Summary How issues are framed relative to forest health and to various biotechnologies matters. Articulating the relation between technologies and values matters. The use of biotech for conservation purposes requires attending to various value frameworks, and especially to interpreting concepts of wildness (Palmer 2016), domestication, extinction (Minteer 2015), genetic integrity (Rohwer and Marris 2016), biodiversity (Sarkar 2007), and responsibility to mitigate harm.
Sources Akin, Heather, et al. 2017. Mapping the Landscape of Public Attitudes on Synthetic Biology. BioScience 67(3): 290-300. Hajjar, Reem and Robert Kozak. 2015. Exploring public perceptions of forest adaptation strategies in Western Canada: Implications for policy-makers. Forest Policy and Economics 61: 59-69. Minteer, Ben. 2015. The Perils of De-extinction. Minding Nature 8(1): 11-17. Lucht, Jan. 2015. Public Acceptance of Plant Biotechnology and GM Crops. Viruses 7(8): 4254 4281. Palmer, Clare. 2016. Saving Species but Losing Wildness: Should We Genetically Adapt Wild Animal Species to Help Them Respond to Climate Change? Midwest Studies in Philosophy 40: 234-251. Pew Research Center. 2016. The New Food Fights: U.S. Public Divides Over Food Science. Rohwer, Yasha and Emma Marris. 2015. Is There a Prima Facie Duty to Preserve Genetic Integrity in Conservation Biology? Ethics, Policy & Environment 18(3): 233-247. Sarkar, Sahotra. 2007. Biodiversity and Environmental Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. Thompson, Paul B. and Steve Strauss. 2000. Research Ethics for Molecular Silviculture. In Molecular Biology of Woody Plants. S. Mohan Jain & Subash Minocha (eds.), Boston: Kluwer, 485-509.