FRST Symposium on Impacts of Emerging Technologies

Victoria University of Wellington
6 September 2003

In a recent interview Sir Robert May, President of the Royal Society said that 'the purpose of science is to tell you what the world is like and having come to some consensus, through an essentially political and social process, about what kind of world we want, (to) tell you, yes you can have it, but this way won't get you there.'

This statement reflects the big picture and wider context that ERMA recognised in its closing submission to the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification. '...we need to recognise that there are limits to the quasi-judicial decision making and make arrangements to deal with the underlying fundamentals of the social, cultural and ethical context at political and policy level.'

Little surprise then that the first Term of Reference of the Bioethics Council states that the Council will 'Provide independent advice to the Government on biotechnological issues involving significant cultural, ethical and spiritual dimensions.' The Council is also charged with the promotion of public dialogue and participation, and the provision of information on the cultural, ethical and spiritual aspects of biotechnology.

In formulating its advice to the Government the Council must take into account the values of New Zealanders and articulate and report on the diversity of views and in particular those created by Treaty issues. It is worth noting that of the nearly 200 Maori submissions to the Royal Commission 32% focused on the Treaty of Waitangi and many made the point that the Crown would be in breach of the Treaty if it allowed genetically modified activities to proceed.

Very quickly we get into matters of constitutional significance. At what levels of governance should decisions be made? Is the Treaty part of governance or is it only part of consultation? Where does authority lie and what does it take to trust the decision-makers? Maori consistently ask these questions. I would not be surprised if there was an application to the Waitangi Tribunal seeking to restrain the release of genetically modified organisms from the end of October.

The Council has a membership of ten plus a kaumatua. Of this number five are Maori and they comprise the Maori Working Group though some also find themselves on other working groups. In recent years Maori have been vocal in the GM debate. Many hapu and iwi have developed resource management units and some of them have taken responsibility for biotechnology issues. Within Government there are various Maori policy units grappling with tikanga and science, matauranga Maori and science, ethics and tikanga. The Maori Working Group has begun to make contact with these community groups and policy units. They have gained an overview of Maori responses to the Royal Commission and they have been briefed on academic research on Maori biotechnologies.

Maori have their distinctive way of framing questions. For instance an enquiry into human genes as separate from the genes of all living things may be an artificial divide for many Maori making their assessment based on tikanga. Maori ask if the mauri of the gene is the same across all species and if the tapu of the gene is the same across all species?

This highlights the reality that the Council contains a range of opinions and on particular issues it may not be easy for us to formulate a common position. Indeed our advice to the Minister may reveal a diversity of opinion but that should not deter us.

Increasingly our pluralist society encompasses a range of traditions and values. Knowledge is one thing but wisdom and judgment is another. Biotechnology is embedded in many institutions that affect the distribution of wealth and opportunity. So there is an issue of equity. There is also a political environment. The people who shape the public space also shape the debate. How are decisions made and what moral principles and values underpin them? What social systems could emerge? Will new ways of understanding relationships emerge? People are not at ease with science, politics and commercial interests. They are seeking trusted informers and so far they have not found them.

The Bioethics Council began by making submissions on the NOOM Bill (New Organisms and Other Matters) and the HART Bill (Human Assisted Reproduction Technology). Both of these Bills propose legislative change in areas that relate to the work of the Council.

We have turned our attention to human genes in other organisms and presently we are considering a title for the project. The possibilities carry the flavour of the debate we are having: should it be 'What is human about our genes?', 'What is human about human genes?', 'Human genes-an emergent property?', or 'Our genes'?

So what makes a human being human? we began to ask. We are not the first group to ask that question. Is there something special about us and does that make us unique? Yet in biological, evolutionary and social terms we enjoy close and complex relationships with the non-human world. Perhaps then humanity and its characteristics of feelings and intelligence emerge from rather than are defined by our genes. Perhaps we are talking about a systems biology where greater complexity and more organisation enable us to think holistically and not in a reductionist way. The debate continues and we have asked one of our members to explore and develop the theme of humanity as an emergent property.

The first step in this project is to identify the issues important to interested parties like the scientific community and advocacy groups and also to get the reactions of people who have not previously thought about this subject. We have also received essays on human genes in other organisms from fifteen contributors representing a wide spectrum of opinion. These will be published as part of a wider programme to inform and promote dialogue.

We sense that dialogue is a relationship we enter into and not simply a method we understand. Knowledge is not a fixed thing. It is not out there waiting to be discovered, it is part of a process and arises out of interaction. A key difference between a dialogue and an ordinary discussion is that within the latter people usually hold relatively fixed positions and argue in favour of their views as they try to persuade others to change These sorts of discussions have characterised the debate about biotechnologies for years. The Bioethics Council is determined not to get bogged down in the same dynamics.

The purpose of dialogue, David Bohm suggests, is to reveal the incoherence of our thought. The process of dialogue is a process of awakening; it entails a free flow of meaning among all the participants. The aim is that people are no longer primarily opposing or merely interacting with each other. Rather they are participating in a pool of common meaning capable of constant development and change.

In our rather vexed environment I wonder if we could ever attain to such an understanding of dialogue. But let me quote from Mason Durie and Peter Wills, two of our essay contributors. What they say does not represent agreement but indicates that genuine dialogue is within our grasp. Durie speaks of the paradigm of the potential and says 'the essential question is not whether Maori values will be compromised by research but how Maori values and concepts can provide a basis for assessing the relevance and potential benefits of research.' He constructs a research potential framework that 'draws on customary concepts but considers the benefits from research rather than the risks. Where the benefits are high, risk might be better tolerated.'

Wills writes 'We should expand rather than limit our view of what it means to be human when we deal with human genes and the possibility of putting them into other organisms. When we think about human genes we should adopt a perspective that does not attempt to draw a hard and fast line around what can be derived directly from our species alone.'

The point is that dialogue seeks to explore and understand rather than to defend.

The second step of the Bioethics Council was to commission NFO, a market research company, to inform us on how people felt about the cultural, ethical and spiritual dimensions of human genes in other organisms. These people had not previously been involved or even thought about the topic. For them it was not a top of the mind issue. Their real concerns were disease, terrorism, George Bush or rising violence in the community. If they spared a thought for genetic engineering and human genes that was within the context of the values they held, the social order they preferred and whether these strange things enhanced or threatened their world. Often they had a sense of powerlessness. Genetics is a tool in the armoury of people who cannot be controlled. This was a constant theme.

However all held one common view: there is something unique about being human. Some backed this up with a Christian or a religious argument or language such as sacred, precious, he taonga te tangata. Noticeably the language used by young and old tended to differ. Middle aged and older people who did not like the thought of interference with the natural order tended to talk about it negatively as 'playing God,' God being the intangible something that somehow controls the order of life. The younger people tended to put their faith in nature, which equated with the natural order and for them 'unnatural' is a negative word.

Running through the survey was a note of ambivalence. The degree to which people would accept genetic interference varied among individuals and depended on the purpose. 'You want people to explore and you want to learn' said one woman 'so on the one hand there's something saying, don't mess with it and the other one is saying, that's progress.'

Absolute safety is an illusion. People do not ask for 'zero risk' or full certainty. They feel strongly that inherent and unavoidable uncertainties should be acknowledged by expert institutions and taken into account when decisions are made. It is the denial of uncertainty which participants find disconcerting and untrustworthy.

The Bioethics Council will continue to develop the human gene project and publish all the work that has been commissioned. Currently we are clarifying what would be the most useful way of thinking through these issues and the best ways to encourage a community and an interest group dialogue. We are ever mindful that we are charged to give advice to the Minister.

We also have a future watch responsibility, which the Minister believes to be very important. Nanotechnology is the science of the very small, involving the manipulation of matter on the scale of atoms and molecules. Nanotechnologies are already being used to make sunscreens, paint strippers or stain resistant fabrics. It opens up the possibility of precise delivery of medicines to affected cells. In 2002 and 2003 the US Government spent $1billion on nanotechnology, mostly for research on defence applications. There is increasing investment in this research internationally and some strong research initiatives in New Zealand.

Eric Drexler has said 'There are many people, including myself, who are quite queasy about the consequences of this technology for the future.' Whatever be the truth, it could develop radically and rapidly. It comes within the Council's future watch function and we have recently given the Minister a paper on the potential development of nanotechnology.

The Bioethics Council has other concerns, commercialisation being one of them. We have a website where you can learn more of us. Our advice to Government will be made public. The consideration of the underlying dimensions to biotechnology is not easy but I hope that the Council will make a useful contribution to the national debates.