Public Engagement and the Importance of Content, Purpose, and Timing

It is easy to call for public engagement (or dialogue) around difficult, morally fraught policy topics such as synthetic biology, but it is quite another thing to make sure that the deliberation is meaningful, as Kaebnick, Gusmano, and Murray aptly insist it should be. The surveys, focus groups, and public dialogues that have been held about synthetic biology to date show a very low level of public knowledge about it. Focus group findings also suggest that the in­herent uncertainty and complexity surrounding synthetic biology give rise to greater ambivalence moving forward. The Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Hart Research Associates presented respondents with a “balanced description” of synthetic biology in nation­wide phone surveys and eight sessions of focus groups and found that, after respondents received information, the percentage saying that the risks outweighed the ben­efits consistently increased . In my view, the Hart research suggests three very im­portant conclusions about how best to structure public deliberation. First, information about uncertainty may not inform the public in any meaningful way. Second, the purpose of assessing public opinion and conduct­ing public deliberation is crucially important. Third, as Kaebnick, Gusmano, and Murray point out, the type and framing of the information given and the timing of the discussion matters a great deal for shaping the content .